Audio Issues

Common recording problems and solutions.

QuickContract captures two audio streams — system audio (the other participants) and microphone (your voice). Most recording issues come down to macOS permissions or OS version requirements. Work through the relevant section below to diagnose and fix the problem.

No audio captured

If you start a recording and end up with complete silence — no waveform activity and no transcript — check the following:

Only hearing one side

If the transcript only shows what the other participants said (but not you), or only your voice (but not theirs), one of the two audio streams is not being captured.

• Missing your voice: Microphone permission is likely denied or your input device is misconfigured. Check System Settings > Sound > Input and make sure the correct microphone is selected. Then verify the Microphone permission is granted to QuickContract.
• Missing other participants: System Audio Recording permission is denied. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security > System Audio Recording and enable QuickContract. You must restart the app after granting this permission.

Transcription is blank

If the recording completes and shows a waveform but the transcript is empty or contains only garbled text:

• Audio too quiet: The meeting audio may have been too low for Whisper to detect speech. Increase your system volume and the meeting app's audio output for future recordings.
• Wrong Whisper model: The tiny model is fast but less accurate. Try switching to base or small in Settings > Whisper Model for better results, especially with accented speech or technical vocabulary.
• Corrupted audio buffer: In rare cases, the audio capture can produce a malformed buffer. Restart QuickContract and try recording again. If the issue persists, restart your Mac to reset the audio subsystem.

Recording stops unexpectedly

If a recording ends on its own before you click Stop:

• Meeting app closed: If the meeting application (Zoom, Teams, etc.) quits or the call ends, QuickContract's call detection may automatically stop the recording. This is expected behavior when call detection is enabled.
• System went to sleep: macOS suspends audio capture when the Mac sleeps. Go to System Settings > Energy and enable "Prevent automatic sleeping" while on power, or adjust the sleep timer to be longer than your typical meetings.
• Low disk space: QuickContract needs disk space to write audio buffers. If your Mac's storage is nearly full, the recording may fail. Free up space and try again.