After launching and exiting Cisco Proximity Windows looses microphone functionality.

[fernando_ricart]

If I launch Cisco Proximity on Windows I loose microphone functionality. Which I understand since the client is accessing the microphone to pair with the SX unit. 

But, if I quit and exit the client microphone functionality does not come back. I would need to restart my computer for the functionality to return.

Any reason as to why this is happening? 

[fernando_ricart]

To add a note, this only happens when I'm not dock. If go back to my desk and dock my computer the microphone functionality returns.

It's just a weird issue.

[mneergaa · Accepted solution]

It sounds like a driver issue. First, try to see if you can find a newer audio driver, possibly also updated drivers for related hardware such as the dock and chipset.

If this doesn't help, you can try to see if disabling exclusive mode does. If disabling exclusive mode helps with the issue, but renders you unable to connect to the codec, check all the recording settings. You may need to disable all microphone effects such as echo cancellation for your card to work without exclusive mode.

Feedback on how you fare, and information about which hardware you are using, would be great so we can help others in your situation as good as possible.

[fernando_ricart]

Hello mneergaa,

By unchecking 'Give exclusive mode applications priority' from the Exclusive Mode the issue with the microphone was resolved. We were able to connect to the codec successfully. 

We went a step further and unchecked 'Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device' which disables 'Give exclusive mode applications priority'. 

Thanks again for your help. 

[Rodrigo Reyes]

Fernando - I tried this in Windows 10 and proximity would not work at all when exclusive mode was dissabled. What version of windows and Cisco Proximity are you running?  My proximity version is desktop-2.0.4

[Rodrigo Reyes]

mneergaa - I am having a similar issue but not sure if this is something you change on the endpoint or on the proximity app on windows?  If the latter, where do you make those changes?

Thanks for the help.

Rodrigo

[Wayne DeNardi]

This is neither a setting on the endpoint, nor the proximity app. It is a setting within Windows itself for the driver for the microphone.

[Rodrigo Reyes]

Thank you for the reply Wayne.  Unfortunately, if you disable exclusive access proximity pops up with an error that says Microphone Access Denied and the fix is to check exclusive control.

This is a problem because my customer wants to deploy proximity to their users but when they tried, they could no longer use pc audio for WebEx.   It looks like this is working as designed, but would like to find a guide or document that shows this is the case and not a bug, and better understand the roadmap to know if this is going to change anytime in future releases.  Unfortunately, I have found zero information on Cisco's site about this so any help would  be greatly appreciated.

[fernando_ricart]

Hello Rodrigo,

This is still an issue for us. The exclusive control did not fix the issue 100%. We have the same issue as you, were the PC no longer uses audio but for Jabber. 

But, when we utilize the Proximity app the end user dials into the WebEx from the SX unit. That way if they need to share content, the laptop's microphone is available for Proximity. 

In our case, we would not have a user dial into a WebEx or use Jabber from their laptop if they are in a conference room with a SX unit. 

The odd things is once the user returns to their desk and docks their laptop WebEx and Jabber has access to audio. 

Hope this helps.

[Rodrigo Reyes]

Thank you Fernando.  I really appreciate the feedback.