Microphone Not Working With FaceTime

I'm at a loss on this one. My girlfriends microphone is not working in FaceTime on her iPhone 5s. The microphone itself works because we tested it with the Voice Memos app. When we have a FaceTime conversation I can occasionally hear some sort of clicking/crackling noise, but no voice. I don't know exactly what it's picking up. However with strictly FaceTime audio calls it does pick up sound. The sound also does not work with voice recording text messages.

The first thing I thought of was thinking that maybe the app doesn't have permission to access the microphone. I looked though settings and on FaceTime but couldn't find where the permission could be toggled. And I had no idea how to force it to ask the permission question again.

Prior to getting her iPhone 5s screen fixed, she was using an old iPhone 4 for a long time. On the iPhone 4 FaceTime worked just fine. When she got the 5s back I restored it from iCloud with a backup image of the iPhone 4 so she would have all of her apps and what not. Since then the microphone on FaceTime has not been working.

Any tips or ideas on what to try?


I wonder if the iPhone is somehow detecting a pair of headphones in the device only when the FaceTime is active for video calls?

Steps to take:

  1. Reboot iPhone
  2. Try in phone app
  3. Try again with FaceTime

Possibly also try a device backup and then restore either using your computer or iCloud for the backup.

Edit:

When reading your comment, you reminded me that there are 2 separate mics on the iPhone 5S. Microphones on iPhones. I believe the mic on the back is used for FaceTime and the front mic is used for phone calls as well as FaceTime Audio. Here is an iFixit guide list for the iPhone 5S.