No audio detected during recording

If you stopped a session and the transcript is empty (or full of [silence] markers), Confidant didn't capture any usable audio. Here's how to figure out why.

Was the level meter moving during recording?

Open the session panel during a recording — there's a live audio level meter at the top. If the meter was moving while you were talking, audio was captured (the problem is somewhere else). If the meter was flat the whole time, audio wasn't reaching Confidant.

If the meter wasn't moving

Most likely the wrong input device is selected.

Stop the (likely empty) recording
Open Settings → Recording → Audio Input
Click the device dropdown
Pick the correct microphone — not "System default" if you're not sure what that is currently set to
Start a new test recording, watch the meter, talk, see if it moves

Other things to check if the meter still doesn't move:

Mic is muted at the OS level. Look at your menu bar (Mac) or system tray (Windows) for a mic-mute indicator.
Mic permission denied. Mac: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → Confidant should be on. Windows: Settings → Privacy → Microphone.
Hardware mic switch. Many USB mics have a physical mute button. Some headsets too.
Wrong cable / disconnected. Sounds obvious, but worth checking before deeper troubleshooting.

If the meter was moving but the transcript is still empty

This is unusual but possible. A few causes:

Audio level was too low. If the meter was barely twitching, Whisper may not have detected speech. Move closer to the mic, or boost input gain in your OS sound settings.
Background noise overwhelmed the speech. Loud HVAC, fans, music — Whisper sometimes interprets these as non-speech and skips them.
Wrong language detected. Whisper is multilingual but tries to detect language automatically. If your session was in English but Whisper guessed something else (rare), the transcript can come out empty or in the wrong language.

If you can capture audio in other apps but not Confidant

Quit Confidant fully and relaunch
Restart your computer (clears any stuck audio device handles)
If the issue persists, contact support with your audio device name and OS version

Recovering audio from a failed session

The session's audio file is on disk regardless of whether transcription found anything. It lives in Confidant's data folder under recordings/. If you suspect there's audio that just wasn't transcribed (because of the wrong language, e.g.), contact support — we can help you re-trigger transcription with different settings without losing the file.