Blue Snowball Not Working on Discord? How To Fix It

Discord is a great platform to build a fan base for your home-based podcast, and it’s a place where you can interact one-on-one with your listeners. If you’ve noticed that your Blue Snowball tends to stop working on Discord, you’re not alone. 

Blue Snowball not working on Discord can be due to settings, updates, permissions, or even connectivity issues. Making sure the Blue Snowball is set as your default microphone and has all the appropriate permissions can ensure the mic never stops working on Discord.

This article will review a wide variety of methods you can use to try and get your Blue Snowball to work consistently on Discord. There are no complex fixes involved, so you should be able to resolve the issue quickly. Here are all the things you should check regarding the Snowball not working on Discord and the easy ways to fix them.

1. Ensure You Aren’t Muted on Discord

This may sound strange, but there is a great chance that you are muted on Discord. This might be happening accidentally, meaning you are muting yourself and forgetting about it. 

The most likely explanation for this is that you’ve set your microphone on “toggle to mute.” The setting allows your mic to remain muted unless you’re pressing on a specific key-bind. 

In any case, verifying whether you’re muted on Discord is no big deal. Here’s what you need to do to check if you’re muted and unmute yourself:

1. Open Discord
2. Make sure that the mic symbol doesn’t have the “no” symbol on it, and toggle it if needed.
3. Click on Settings and toggle the user volume to ensure you aren’t deafened.
4. Ask other members of a Discord server to set your user volume at the highest possible setting.

Lastly, check if a moderator has muted you on a specific server. Checking your mic on a number of servers will help you figure this out. 

2. Change the Input Device on Discord

As you’d expect, the default setting on Discord is to choose your computer’s default microphone as a voice input device. The problem can be exacerbated if you use multiple microphones as well. 

Often there is an error when plugging in external microphones like the Blue Snowball, where it remains a secondary device instead of replacing the default mic.

You can check the chosen input device on Discord by clicking on the settings icon and navigating to “Voice & Video.” Under INPUT DEVICE, you should see your microphone’s name. 

If it’s set to another microphone or set as default, you can select the correct option via the drop-down menu. Stay on this window because there are other settings you might want to adjust from here. I’ll discuss them in the next steps. 

3. Adjust the Microphone Sensitivity on Discord

As with several other platforms and programs, Discord allows you to set microphone sensitivity to optimal levels. This means that you can tweak your microphone to record fewer or more wavelengths of sound.

In layman’s terms, that would be setting the microphone to listen to very quiet sounds or ignoring quiet sounds and listening only to louder sounds. If this parameter is not properly configured, you’ll find that the microphone will only work if you’re very loud. 

Luckily, adjusting microphone sensitivity is pretty simple:

1. Navigate the “Voice & Video” tab in Discord’s settings.
2. Under INPUT SENSITIVITY, you should see a green bar. If the bar is green, it has been set to automatically determine the input sensitivity.
3. If not, uncheck the automatic input sensitivity button to set it manually.
4. Talk into the microphone with a neutral voice—not too loud, not too quiet. Make sure you’re not speaking directly into the microphone, and remaining at a normal distance away from it. 
5. Set the microphone sensitivity according to the size of the bar when you’re speaking. 

4. Update Discord Permissions

Windows has a fairly decent firewall system in place that usually works smoothly but can be overzealous at times. If you’ve recently updated your Windows operating system, you might find that the Discord app doesn’t have permission to use audio devices. This is a safety precaution set in place by Windows to prevent those with malicious intent from using your microphone. 

However, without the relevant permission settings, Discord won’t be allowed to use any audio devices through your computer.

Here’s how to fix that:

1. Click on the Settings wheel icon from the start menu. (Alternatively, you can press Win+i)
2. Click on “Privacy” then “Microphone” on the left pane of the settings window.
3. Click on “Change”
4. Ensure that the toggle for “Allow apps to access your microphone” is set to “on.” 
5. Scroll down, and search for Discord under “Choose Which Microsoft Store Apps Can Access Your Microphone.”
6. Ensure that the toggle next to Discord is set to “on.”

5. Adjust the Microphone Settings

You’ll find a physical switch on the back of your Blue Snowball, marked 1-2-3. This is also a setting for audio gain or sensitivity, which is different from volume. It’s basically a parameter regarding how sensitive the microphone should be to sounds that are nearer or farther away from the microphone. 

Toggle the physical switch on the back to see if this is what is causing your mic to stop working on Discord. It helps to have someone else listening to you through the platform. 

6. Check the Connection

Blue Snowball connects to your computer via the USB port. Sometimes you might find that you haven’t connected the cable to the USB port fully, which would stop the mic from working. 

However, it’s worth noting that this problem will not be Discord-specific. That is, you wouldn’t have been able to use the mic anywhere else. 

Also, even though the Snowball supports all USB ports, connecting the microphone to the USB 3.0 port on your laptop or PC is preferable. To fix USB port issues, plug out the microphone and plug it back in. You should find that any issues have been resolved.

7. Set Blue Snowball As the Default Audio Device

Most people setting up a home studio for podcasting will only have one external microphone. However, if you’re using your home studio for other recording purposes, you might have been using multiple microphones, and switching between them as per your recording needs.

You’re free to use as many microphones as necessary for your home studio. However, this might interfere with their functioning as the default audio device. 

Since you’ve already set the Blue Snowball as your input device on Discord, it might be helpful to consider setting the Snowball as the default audio device overall.

Here’s a quick guide on how to set your Blue Snowball (or any other microphone) as your computer’s default audio device:

1. Click on the Settings wheel icon from the start menu. (Alternatively, you can press Win+i)
2. Click on “Systems” then “Sound” on the left pane of the settings window.
3. Click on “Sound Control Panel” in the right pane. 
4. Switch to the “Recording” tab in the new window that opens.
5. Right-click your preferred audio device (Blue Snowball in this case) and click on “Set Default.”

8. Reinstall Snowball Drivers

If the problem still persists, you may want to resort to more drastic measures than just tweaking the settings. There may have been an error during the installation of drivers for your Blue Snowball. 

Luckily, deleting and reinstalling drivers isn’t very complicated unless you’re especially tech-illiterate. 

The Snowball drivers’ function is to ensure optimal performance and better connection to the mic.

Here’s what you have to do to reinstall them:

1. Connect your Snowball mic to your computer.
2. Open up the start menu.
3. Type “Device Manager” and click on the result
4. Expand “Audio Inputs & Outputs”
5. Right-click on the Snowball microphone driver. 
6. Click “Uninstall device.”
7. Expand “Sound, Video, And Game Controllers” 
8. Right-click on the Snowball microphone driver. 
9. Click on “Uninstall device.”
10. Disconnect your Snowball microphone from the computer.
11. Reconnect the microphone after a few minutes. 

If connected to the internet, your computer will automatically install the relevant (latest) drivers for the Snowball microphone because the data is saved on a microchip within the device.

9. Manually Disable Audio Devices

Sometimes there is a glitch in the connection between audio devices and the computer. This is probably from switching between different microphones—the embedded one, the Snowball, and any other external mic you may have tried using.

Many users have reported that disabling (and subsequently re-enabling) their audio devices helps reconfigure the connection with audio devices and get rid of any existing glitches. 

This is how you can manually disable your audio devices:

1. Unplug your Blue Snowball
2. Open Device Manager (you can search for it by typing into the start menu)
3. Expand “Audio Inputs & Outputs”
4. Right-click on any connected microphones and click on “Disable device.”
5. Restart your computer.

Once you’re done with manually disabling other audio devices, you can reconnect your Snowball and start using it.

10. Update Other Drivers: USB, Audio

After you’ve exhausted all the possible updates and tweaks regarding your Blue Snowball microphone, you may need to consider updating other drivers that are involved in this process. This would mean the USB drivers and the audio driver. 

Even if you haven’t ever done anything regarding these drivers, they may be corrupted over time. Windows does a fairly good job of automatically updating and fixing corrupt drivers, but it’s not perfect. There are several paid tools you can find online that help you automatically scan all the drivers installed on your computer and update or fix them as necessary.

If you aren’t willing to purchase driver scanning software, you can still update the driver manually.

Here’s how to update your USB drivers manually:

1. Run the Device Manager
2. Expand “Universal Serial Bus Controller”
3. Right-click on a USB driver
4. Click on “Update Driver” 
5. Click on “Search Automatically For Updated Driver Software”
6. Repeat the process for all USB drivers.

11. Run Windows Troubleshooting

If all else fails, it won’t hurt to run the Windows Troubleshooting program. This program is designed to diagnose hardware and software errors whenever possible. Your Blue Snowball might be working great on other applications, but it still might have a few errors that need to be addressed.

You can find the Windows troubleshooting utility by searching for it in your PC’s start menu.

I highly suggest that you troubleshoot the following three different widgets:

• Playing Audio: This program is responsible for playing audio after it has been recorded via the mic.
• Recording Audio: The recording audio is responsible for recording the sound that your microphone sensors are picking up.
• Speech: The text-to-speech utility on Windows might be interfering with your microphone’s performance. 

Windows troubleshooting is an automated process whereby Windows will detect and fix problems that it finds after you’ve run the utility.

Here is how you can do that:

1. Launch the Settings app (Win+i or the settings wheel)
2. Click on “Update & Security” then “Troubleshoot.” 
3. Click on “Additional Troubleshooters”
4. Under “Playing Audio,” click on “Run The Troubleshooter” and allow Windows to run the troubleshooter.
5. Under “Recording Audio,” click on “Run The Troubleshooter” and allow Windows to run the troubleshooter.
6. Under “Speech,” click on “Run The Troubleshooter” and allow Windows to run the troubleshooter.
7. Restart your computer.

While this process is not guaranteed to bring results, it has been known to find errors and glitches that need to be fixed. Make sure you have a stable internet connection while Windows is troubleshooting to ensure that the system has access to data from its servers and other information online. 

Conclusion

While it can be frustrating when your Blue Snowball mic stops working on Discord, there are many solutions to the problem.

If you want to proactively prevent this from happening, here are a few things to try:

• Avoid switching microphones so that your favorite one is always set as the default on your computer.
• Keep your microphone plugged in, even when turning off the computer.
• Keep your microphone clean.
• Update drivers and software regularly. 

By following the steps mentioned in this article, there is a high chance that you won’t suffer from your Blue Snowball not working on Discord anymore.

Sources

• SlurpTech: How to Enable Toggle Mute & Push to Mute on Discord
• Analog Dialogue: Understanding Microphone Sensitivity
• eMastered Blog: What is Gain & How It Differs from Volume
• BlueMic: Snowball