Why can’t I hear my friend on Discord

Discord is used as a means of voice communication, probably even more often than the messenger, so the appearance of various problems with calls and the audibility of interlocutors is not uncommon. Just the most common problem of this nature is when you cannot hear a friend during a personal call or when using voice channels. Next, I suggest taking turns trying different methods that are aimed at solving the problem.

Checking the sound button

I’ll start with the most banal advice – checking whether the sound is turned on at all in Discord itself. It may seem to you that such a problem does not occur to users at all, but do not forget that not everyone is advanced in Discord or simply does not even know about the existence of a button that turns off the audibility of interlocutors. You can see it in the next screenshot and you must change it to the same state if the icon is now crossed out with a red line.

It is enough just to click on this button with the left mouse button so that it becomes displayed exactly the same as in the image above. After that, you can even not end the current call with a friend, if he is still on, and check if audibility appears.

Adjusting the volume of the interlocutor

Not everyone knows for sure about this setting, because often they don’t even use the context menu in which this parameter is located. Its essence lies in the fact that through the interaction menu with a specific user, you can mute it or control the volume of a specific person. This is very convenient when it comes to group communication and someone is heard louder or quieter than the rest. If you do not hear the interlocutor at all, click on his nickname in the list of server members and use the context menu that appears to move the “User volume” slider to the right. You can also find the “Mute Sound” item in this menu and make sure that there is no checkmark next to it.

If you cannot find it in the list of participants, you can call this menu in the same way, but in the voice channel by right-clicking on the user’s nickname. By the way, in this way you can adjust the volume of all participants in the voice channel the way you need it.

I note that during a personal call, if it was made through the user’s page, you will be redirected to another window – there are no such settings there, and to solve the problem, you will need to refer to the next method.

Checking account settings

Let’s check one more setting that relates directly to your Discord account and can affect the audibility of interlocutors. In the profile settings, there is an option to select the audio output source, as well as a volume slider. It is all this that I propose to check by following the instructions below.

1. In Discord itself, click the gear button to open your account settings.
2. In the left panel, select “Voice and Video” .
3. Pay attention to the item “Output device” . If the program offers a choice of different sources, select the one that you use to listen to system and other sounds on your computer (in the next method I will show you how to determine the current active device).
4. Now you can add a little volume even in cases where the slider is already turned halfway or more, since there is a chance that the interlocutor is heard, but not well enough.

There is nothing complicated in following the steps presented. The only difficulty can be caused by the presence of different output devices. If you do not know which one to choose, pay attention to the following method for solving the problem in question.

System sound check

Here it is immediately worth noting that the presence of sound in Windows is initially implied. That is, you can listen to music, watch videos, but at the same time you do not hear only the interlocutor in Discord. If there is no sound at all on the computer, other solution methods will be needed, and this is a topic for a separate article.

1. In this case, we will check only the output source, the overall volume and the volume of the application itself through the mixer. Therefore, to get started, open the Start menu and go through it to Settings .
2. Use the search or find the section called “Sound” on your own .
3. In it, check the name of the current playback device. If it differs from the one you chose in Discord, then you need to return to the program and, following the instructions from the previous method, change the output device.
4. You can move the volume control a little to the right and look behind its dynamic bar to make sure there is sound in the OS.
5. To view the volume of the application itself, go down in this settings window and open the mixer by clicking on ” Volume” .
6. Find “Discord” there and make sure the volume is set to 100.

Enabling App Mute

This recommendation will be useful for those users who cannot hear their interlocutor in Discord during the game. By default, the mute function is on, but the level may not be enough, because of which the sound of what is happening in the game will simply interrupt your friend and you will not really hear anything. Let’s fix this situation by changing one setting.

1. Go to your account settings in the same way as it was already shown above. Open the already familiar section “Voice and video” , scroll down the list of options and find the item “When others speak” for the setting “Mute applications” . Make sure the switch is in the active position.
2. Now you can adjust the slider by moving it to the right to provide more muting of the game sound when your interlocutor is talking.

Now it is better to make a test call by launching any game. Check if it got better or if you still have trouble hearing or not hearing your interlocutor at all. If necessary, proceed to consider the last recommendation.

Changing the sound subsystem

By default, Discord has the default audio subsystem used by other chat apps. We recommend changing it to an outdated or experimental one to see if it affects the quality of your calls. This parameter is located immediately below the previous one and has the corresponding name. Just expand the list of subsystems and select the one that differs from the standard one. 

If after testing it turns out that the situation has not changed, it is better to return the sound subsystem to the “Standart” state.

Changing the voice channel region

The last recommendation will be directed to those users who have difficulty communicating with interlocutors in voice channels. If you are the owner of this server, you will need to manually change the settings to select a different region for the channel. If not, contact your administrator and describe your problem. The details of changing the region are described in my other article on Discord , so you can use the appropriate instructions to solve this problem.

If none of the above helped you, do not exclude the fact that the problem may be on the side of the interlocutor. Try to connect to other voice chats or call another person to check. Ask him to check your microphone. Take a little time to find the true cause of the problem, and then it will be solved in the shortest possible time.