ARTICLE

Polycom Communicator Low Mic Volume

by | Tue 17 Jun 2008

Dear Lazyweb,

**UPDATE – READ BELOW THE SOLUTION**

I am having troubles getting my [Polycom Communicator](https://www.polycom.com/emea/en/products/voice/desktop/communicator_c100s.html) for Skype speakerphone working in Ubuntu – the microphone volume is always very low in Skype, and when I try to adjust the mixer volume slider for the mic, there is no luck. This does not appear to be a Skype issue – I tried recording in Audacity and the problem exists there too.

* [Launchpad bug](https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/240623)
* [Ubuntu forums thread](https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=5202323)

Has anyone found a fix for this, and does this exist on other distros?

## UPDATE: Solution

Much thanks to Tom Mann who [left a comment](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/?p=1199#comment-122051) to point to his forums post with a possible solution. Well, I did the following, and it worked:

* `sudo alsactl store`
* `sudo cp /var/lib/alsa/asound.state /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.old`
* `sudo nano /var/lib/alsa/asound.state`

I then found the `state.Communicator` block and the sub-block with `name ‘Mic Capture Volume’` – the `value` was set to 0, so I set it to the maximum value, which is `64`. My block looks like this:

> control.2 {

> comment.access ‘read write’

> comment.type INTEGER

> comment.count 1

> comment.range ‘0 – 64’

> iface MIXER

> name ‘Mic Capture Volume’

> value 64

> }

Then **unplug the Polycom Communicator** and plug it back in again. It should now work. 🙂

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