Switching audio source or output mid call freezes OS

[tsievert]

Using a supported version?

• I have searched searched open and closed issues for duplicates.
• I am using Signal-Desktop as provided by the Signal team, not a 3rd-party package.

Overall summary

I have noticed that if you try to switch your audio input or output source in the middle of a video call, it immediately locks up the OS for a while and seems to crash Signal. The OS will recover after a few minutes, but the audio will remain non-functional and will require a restart.

Steps to reproduce

1. Start video call
2. Change audio input or output source from on-screen menu
3. Observe crash and temporary OS freeze

Expected result

Either it should allow to smoothly switch the source or not give it as an option if it's not intended.

Actual result

Call drops, Signal crashes, OS temporarily freezes

Screenshots

No response

Signal version

7.40.1

Operating system

Windows 11

Version of Signal on your phone

No response

Link to debug log

https://debuglogs.org/desktop/7.40.1/5e96f24a171b55d972391b58164a6d967b2093cdd89398a6dfa83e808050dfab.gz

[jim-signal]

Hello @tsievert, can you provide some more information... We can see a Windows error 0x800705AA being returned, which seems to indicate a system error like "insufficient system resources (low memory)" or "misconfigured system files".

Is this behavior new, in other words, have you need able to switch between devices successfully with previous versions of Signal?

Your post indicates that this is reproducible, but I only can find one crash in the logs. Can you provide a log after it happens again?

What are the specific devices (brand/model) you are trying to switch between? Are you able to use each of those devices in a call? Just asking in case there could be an issue with the device and not necessarily the switching. Switching devices in-call is indeed supported and should be working.

[tsievert]

Hey,
I would say the behaviour is new, as in like the last month. But I also changed computer a few month ago, so I cannot exclude that.

I fully assumed I could reliably reproduce it, as it happend three times during the last month, but during the last video call a few minutes ago, I could not force the crash.

Hardware: Framework 16, AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-5600
Switching between on-board audio to SteelSeries Arctis 7X caused the crash before, but worked now.

No other ressource intense software was running at the time, that could explain the low memory error.

[jim-signal]

@tsievert Thanks for the information. We've run some tests but can't reproduce anything yet. If/when it happens again, can you submit logs when you start the client for the first time after the crash? It should prompt you to send logs (if it detected the crash) and those logs would include some crash details we can analyze further.