Is there a fix coming for how Teams handles audio in Linux?

Andrew 56 Reputation points
2020-12-08T19:17:47.053+00:00

Every 3rd or 4th time that I use Teams, my audio settings end up totally screwed up. The most annoying one is that the list of available output devices drops the listing for the aux output, and sound is piped out the aux jack and the internal speakers at the same time. I can follow the steps in the following troubleshooting article to reset everything and get the options back to configure things how I would like them, however I have to use the steps in #1B which requires a full reboot. That is insanely annoying when you have multiple tmux sessions and countless tabs open. Aside from this problem I usually go a month or more without needing to restart my machine.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshootingProcedure

I reset everything and rebooted last night. After a single Teams meeting today, the ability to change my microphone amplifier setting is already lost. At least it isn't outputting on both devices yet and the current mic setting is OK.

I am currently stuck at 16.04 for a little while longer due to dependencies surrounding software that I use at work.

I am on a Dell Precision 7510 with the following chipset if the hardware is related. I am not currently using any external USB attached microphones or webcams:
Audio device: Intel Corporation 100 Series/C230 Series Chipset Family HD Audio Controller (rev 31)

Insanely annoying.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Skype for Business | Linux
Microsoft 365 and Office | Skype for Business | Linux

A Microsoft communications service that provides communications capabilities across presence, instant messaging, audio/video calling, and an online meeting experience that includes audio, video, and web conferencing.

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  1. JimmyYang-MSFT 58,786 Reputation points Moderator
    2020-12-09T08:04:09.21+00:00

    Hi @Andrew ,

    Thanks for your feedback!

    To clarify this issue, I have some questions need you to answer:

    1. Does anyone else have the same issue in your organization?
    2. To exclude the hardware issue, have you tried to use another applications to see if the audio is normal in it?

    If it is normal in another applications, I believe this issue is more related to Teams client version. In this case, we recommend you try to clean your client cache file and restart it to see if this issue can be fixed. You can run the command:

    rm -r〜/ .config / Microsoft / Microsoft \ Teams

    If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

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  2. Andrew 56 Reputation points
    2020-12-18T15:09:04.817+00:00 
    sudo apt install teams
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
teams is already the newest version (1.3.00.30857).

    I was apparently already at the newest version. I am currently using a separate work around. I have given up on deleting the pulseaudio settings and rebooting. For whatever reason, the HDMI audio output does not get messed up. I moved the AUX jack to the back of my monitor and am routing the audio through the HDMI out. It's good enough for now. I don't have time to further debug this.

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  3. Johannes Almer 1 Reputation point
    2020-12-19T17:49:27.93+00:00

    I can confirm this.
    teams and teams-insider change at the start the audio connection.
    If i choose the Microphone from the Webcam and the earplugs, it change afterwards sometimes the microphone to the internal and so on.
    Therefore i use often 2 Webcams for experiments, it gets tedious.

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  4. Robert Hancock 56 Reputation points
    2021-02-23T16:25:38.327+00:00

    Teams definitely needs a way to make it STOP trying to select the input and output devices it is using and just always use the system defaults, because the way it manages audio device selection is completely broken. It doesn't notice Bluetooth devices that are connected after the app is started, and if you do manage to select a Bluetooth headset, it ends up using it for both input and output, even if you don't want this and explicitly selected another input device. It's ridiculous, no other app behaves in this way. I'm basically forced to use Teams through Chrome instead to avoid this problem.

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    8 people found this answer helpful.
  5. nico.deranter 6 Reputation points
    2021-04-08T07:39:03.85+00:00

    Same here with Ubuntu 20.04 and Teams 1.4.00.7556. Even after changing the audio device settings within Teams it still force audio in and out to my bluetooth device when I start a meeting. This is the only Linux app I've ever used that behaves like this.

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