i had an hourlong search for a computer problem yesterday, it was very annoying. well, to be perfectly fair, the search was actually for a solution, the problem was right there

i was talking to my friends on jitsi, and they couldn't hear me well because i was half as loud as everyone else. i checked all the options in jitsi that could influence the mic volume, and, when i was sure everything was maxed out, looked at the browser settings, which were all fine. still quiet.

next stop: windows sound source levels... and: aha! the mic was set to loudness level 66. perfect - just put that on 100, bam! close dialog, start talking like everyone... else..? wait.. why am i not louder than before? open windows settings again: mic level 74. what?

i repeat: what?

set microphone level to 100. go to conference call. speak. go back to windows settings. microphone level is somewhere between 60 and 80.

what??

as we then managed to find out, it was that whenever i stopped speaking on a video call, my microphone pickup level would automatically lower itself.

i could watch the slider jump in the windows settings dialog after i'd made a noise.

well, that meant a fun little pre-easter treasure hunt! it took me a good long while to find all the distributed and hidden windows settings that could have influenced that! some of them were in windows for workgroups 3.11 styled dialogs. you know you're deep in the bowel of an OS when the graphics start looking like the mid 90s.

anyway, i found all of those settings and neutralized them!

and the problem didn't go away because that wasn't what caused it!!!!

fuck!!!

so i started googling, like a chump, for further ideas... turns out the internet is chock full of guides to MY SPECIFIC PROBLEM [SOLVED FOR 2024]!!!! how convenient! pay no attention to the seven-fingered spokesperson

i tried all their solutions for 2024, like going through all the messenger software i had that wasn't even running and adjusting their settings, where available, that sounded like they could automatically change the volume; cause apparently that's something apps can do, change the OS level microphone input volume! i did not know that!

in any event, it wasn't zoom or skype or discord or what have you. the problem persisted.

things were complicated further by how my windows is in fucking GERMAN and none of info on the troubleshooting websites in english is googleable directly because i don't know the phrasings of the errors and descriptions and names to google for
so i had mostly german help results

at some point i just started to randomly guess at likely english keywords, and that's when i eventually found the culprit:

it was an experimental flag in fucking chrome that would change the system-wide mic levels through, uh, i wanna say .. WebRTC? i had never heard of any of it

what??!

anyway, now i can set my stupid webcam volume to 100 and it will stay there and not drop to 66 after i say hi

and it only took most of my morning!

(if you read all this... about 60 times as long as it took you to do that!)