Default audio devices in teams

Copper Contributor

Hi All,

 

I use a Lenovo X1 carbon 6th Generation laptop along with a Thunderbolt Docking station. (Windows 10 operating system)

 

I use a usb headset for teams/ meetings and calls.  When I unplug my headset, Teams defaults to my docking station. When I plug it back in, my docking station remains as default without automatically placing my headset back as default. (My headset is defaulted for all sound devices)

 

My headset will appear in device options in Teams and I have to re-select it there in order to use it in -teams again.

 

I've found that even after unplugging my docking station and only having my PC speakers and internal microphone as options, Teams will not automatically default back to my headset.  It will remain defaulted to my PC speakers and internal microphone.

 

Teams only defaults back if every other sound option is disabled from the sound control panel.

 

However, other meeting software like Zoom and Cisco Webex automatically default to my headset (or whatever new sound device is plugged in) each time without me having to disable other sound devices or re-select it from the Zoom/Webex devices menu.

 

I and many other users at my company have noticed this behavior. Does anyone have any hints or clues to help us out? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you!

16 Replies

Hi @S_Smith705,

 

I confirm this behavior in Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Skype for Business did it right, other messaging platforms also can do it, only Microsoft Teams not:

 

We also have to change the audio device each time we dock our PCs - very annoying!

agreed. We are seeing this on multiple devices. 

 @S_Smith705 I agree. We've seen the same thing here. When I dock, or even plug into a monitor via HDMI and it has speakers, it defaults to other devices despite me settings my local as default (through settings in Windows). I'm constantly going into the settings in Teams to make my laptop devices default for both speaker and microphone. No matter how I toggle them, it does what it wants and won't remember my default changes when I dock and move around with other peripherals.

@S_Smith705 

Microsoft Teams always selects the wrong audio device for me too on my Windows 10 machine. I use a Yeti Nano microphone. Teams selects the Yeti Nano as the microphone (good) but then also selects it as the speaker too (bad). Every time I open Teams I must go to settings and change the speaker to a speaker. There is no way to save the "Custom configuration". Why doesn't Microsoft fix this bug? Teams should never select a microphone (Yeti Nano) to be a speaker. Yeti is among the most popular microphone brands. Please fix the bug or tell me how to fix it. Thank you.

@Peter_Cramton It does that because the Yeti products have an in-mic monitoring port for headphones and it figures you'll want to use one interface for your audio. 

However, that's also Micro$oft Teams trying to be smarter than it's user. If we have a default setup, we should be able to set that as a default and have only that setup be used. Especially on something where you can receive a call at a moment's notice, and then need to fumble to get your headset on and the right Mic interface selected. And if the program has defaulted to some other interface because Teams is monitoring the interfaces, and your headset or mic decided to go to sleep or is being used by another application, it takes sometimes RESTARTING TEAMS to get it to play ball with my setup.

There is no reason why in 2021 we should be begging M$FT to implement a default device override for our equipment. You'd think all the niggling foibles of a badly designed Slack wannabe would become very well broadcast during a Pandemic where WFH is necessary. I feel like the whole Micro$oft Teams Dev Team uses Discord instead of their own product, because if they actually had done so this past year, we'd see improvements out the yin yang.

But instead we got the stupid everyone sitting in seats facing the same direction aka F*cking Stupid Stadium layout... and pop out chats. And that's it. 

No native notifications for either platform. No better Mac Compatability. No Video bandwidth modifications. No default settings for devices you want to use for your Teams experience.

I'd say go post the issue on UserVoice, but that is equally pointless. The large faceless company will tell you what you need and when you need it, and nevermind those posts with thousands of votes asking for basic QOL improvements on the goddamn notification interface: They need to give us Emoji instead! For the workplace! Not functionality!

Microsoft Teams is the dissapointing poser of a younger brother to Skype, who wants to emulate Slack, try and play on the same level as Discord, but all the normal productivity chat apps just laugh at Teams while it gets its rich daddy to buy its way into every business using a Microsoft Platform. 

I'm kinda glad that Zoom is kicking its **bleep** everyday.

Same issue here. I have an HyperX microphone (which also has in-mic monitoring port) and it always defaults it to speaker instead of my earbuds, even when those are set as system speakers...
If MS won't allow us to set a default speaker configuration, they should at least allows us to use "Same as system" for the speaker (Zoom for example has this option).
Super annoying and waste of working time!
I had been wondering why I was missing Teams notification sound whenever I decide to put my headphones on to listen to music. Turns out Teams doesn't automatically switch the notification audio device when my Bluetooth headphones are activated. There needs to be a selection to set the sound device to the active Windows System device.
can you please tell me where can i vote for this functionality so ms team will follow default audio source as per what i have currently picked by windows? this is needed. i know there is some website where i voted to bring new functionality e.g. reply with quoted answer which is already implemented. so i would like to vote for that improvement with audio default output. thanks !

hi microsoft moderators, is this forum moderated? where we are with this new functionality please? can you update us please or provide estimate when we can see this function live? we need this simple function as other programs zoom , webex etc have it and we rely on that. now we need to go specifically to ms team to change sound source. in our company i will vote to stop using ms team and use other solutions if there is no plan to add this to ms teams. 

I thought I was crazy. This is the same for me and Teams - I have to re-plug (which usually doesn't work) or disable and re-enable. Frustrating when all other applications recognises my USB headset.
It's been almost 2 years since the first post of this issue and still no resolution?
Same problem here with "Oculus Virtual Audio Device" being used before headset or laptop audio!
I am too facing the same issue :( It's really annoying to set the device before every call. I have only 2 devices i.e. pc i/o and external headset. The default device setting of Teams is useless. not working. Microsoft when are you going to fix it? Why can't we have same feature like Zoom of selecting the default system audio device that always works ?
Hi - any update on this? I move between meeting rooms a lot and I often look like an idiot when the sound either doesn't come through my headphones or doesn't come out at all. I also lose time every day performing a test call before entering literally every meeting.
Six years of Makrohard's experience with Teams is unfortunately not enough to understand that people want to use speakers and microphones that are actually existing.
To program an automatic switch to just connected headphones they should be smart, they must guess that you connect these headphones to actually use them, so let's not require that much from them...
However, my favourite Makrohard feature is to randomly redirect sound to a device which does not exist, has never been used or even plugged in.
And you, how do you like using this mockery of OS and communicator?
I sincerely hope that this issue gets some attention as it influences another feature present in Calling Policy, "URL to open apps in browser for incoming PSTN calls", (also may require "Open apps in browser for incoming PSTN calls").

The idea we had was to open the incoming caller's contact information in our erp if it so matched with a customer/contact and show related, however the expected use case of this feature when the user has a paired desktop phone (i.e. Yealink MP56) is to click 'Accept' on the desktop client, then the link opens, then the user can pickup their handset with the call waiting to be answered. THIS WORKS (some of the time).

I found that Teams has a brain of its own and decides that Yealink you have paired to the PC with no speakers/microphone, yea, I'm going to switch your audio device to those non-existent devices.

Having the ability to default a 'Microsoft Certified' Teams phone as a primary audio device, is that really too much to ask?