What if CrankWheel can't access my microphone?

If you have enabled session recording and are finding that your audio does not get recorded, there are a few things to check.

First of all, note that CrankWheel only records your side of audio, i.e. only whatever gets picked up by your computer's microphone. This means if you want both ends of a phone call to be recorded you would need to use a speakerphone.

Now on to technical reasons why CrankWheel might not record any audio at all.

Browser settings issues

The most common reason is that you accidentally blocked access to the microphone at some earlier point, or Chrome was configured to not allow access to the microphone by default. To check and fix:

1. Open a new browser tab in Chrome
2. Copy this into the address bar and press enter:  chrome://settings/content/microphone
3. Check that "CrankWheel Screen Sharing" is not on the list below the heading "Block". If it is, press the trash can icon next to it to remove it from the list.
4. Check that "Ask before accessing (Recommended)" is enabled. If it's not, enable it (the slider should be to the right, and show in blue color).
5. There may be a drop-down menu right above that, which shows the microphones available on your computer. Check that it has a valid microphone selected.
6. If you removed "CrankWheel Screen Sharing" from the list below the heading "Block", you may need to re-enable recording of audio through CrankWheel's options page. To do this:
   1. Click the CrankWheel button to open its control panel
   2. Click the Options button near the bottom to open the user options page.
   3. Scroll to the section where it says recording is enabled. Uncheck "Record audio with screen recording" then click Save
   4. Go to the same section again, check "Record audio with screen recording" and then click Save. This should take you through an authorization flow that will, possibly along with other permissions it requests, prompt you to allow access to the microphone. Allow access when prompted.

System-wide issues

There can be operating system settings on Windows, macOS or Linux that disallow your entire browser program from using the microphone.

For Windows 10:

1. Click the Start button, then Settings, then Privacy, then Microphone
2. Make sure the slider "Allow apps to access your microphone" is enabled.
3. Make sure access is enabled for your browser (typically Google Chrome)
4. If you enable access you may need to restart your browser after you do so.

For macOS:

1. Click the Apple menu (top left of menubar) > System Preferences, then Security & Privacy, then click Privacy. 

2. Click Microphone.

3. Make sure there is a checkmark next to your browser (typically Google Chrome).

4. If you added a checkmark, you will need to restart your browser before the setting takes effect.

For Linux, there are quite a number of different ways depending on the flavor of Linux. We suggest a Google search of "how to enable microphone access FLAVOR" where flavor is your type of Linux, e.g. Ubuntu, and you should find straightforward instructions.