Strange bug since I switched microphones: mic immediately unmutes itself

[luckman212]

Not sure what to make of this bug!

• toggleMute version: 1.6
• macOS 26.0.1

I had been using an old USB mic (RODE NT-USB) which worked fine with toggleMute. Recently I got a new webcam with a decent builtin mic and decided to switch to that for simplicity. The camera is an Insta360 Link 2 if that matters.

SwitchAudioSource -c -t input -f json reports it like this:

{
  "name": "Insta360 Link 2",
  "type": "input",
  "id": "138",
  "uid": "AppleUSBAudioEngine:Insta360:Insta360 Link 2:1110000:3"
}

For some reason, now when I trigger my mute toggle hotkey, it mutes for a split second and then immediately unmutes. It won't stay muted no matter what. If I open Audio MIDI Setup.app and click the mute button from there, it works fine. So it's only from toggleMute itself. Not sure what the problem could be, but wanted to report.

[satrik]

hey @luckman212, sounds strange.
what happens if you run this command osascript -e "set volume input volume 0" and what happens if you move the input volume slider in the system sound settings to 0 (this is actually what toggleMute is doing)?

[luckman212]

Here's a screenshot of that... the osascript command sets the slider to 0 but the "mute" attribute does not get highlighted.

[satrik]

interesting 🤔 I'm not sure, but isn't volume 0 essentially the same as mute?
does any sound still come through the microphone when the slider is set to 0?

[luckman212]

In this case the answer is "YES"– for some reason this microphone behaves differently, it does NOT seem to support volume control, i.e. no matter what level I set the slider to, the volume of the recording is the same. I tested this with a QuickTime Audio recording. The only way to get this mic to stop listening is to actually set the "mute" state.

[satrik]

does it mute with SwitchAudioSource -m mute -t input and unmute with SwitchAudioSource -m unmute -t input?

[luckman212]

Yes it does.

[satrik]

I will check if I can integrate something from SwitchAudioSource to get toggleMute working with your mic, maybe this will also work for AirPods then (#5). but I will need some days to find time for it