Practice & coaching
Recording won't start — turning the microphone on for ElkNut
Tapped Record and nothing happened, or the app says microphone access is off? The switch is in your phone's settings, not the app. Here's where it is on iPhone, iPad and Android, and the two other things that block a recording.
Practice recording uses your phone’s microphone, and your phone only lets an app use the microphone once you’ve said yes. The first time you tap Record, ElkNut asks. If that question was answered Don’t Allow — by you, by someone else who uses the device, or by a family / Screen Time setting — every later tap does nothing, and the app can’t ask again. It can only point you to the switch.
1. Read the message under Record
Open any call, go to the Practice tab and tap Record. When a recording can’t start, a short message appears right under the button saying why — that message tells you which of the fixes below you need. On newer versions of the app there’s also an Open Settings button beside it that jumps straight to the right screen.
2. Turn the microphone on
iPhone and iPad
- Open Settings.
- Tap Privacy & Security, then Microphone.
- Turn on ElkNut.
If ElkNut isn’t in that list at all, a restriction is hiding it: go to Settings → Screen Time → Content & Privacy Restrictions → Microphone and make sure changes are allowed, then come back to the Microphone list.
Android
- Open Settings, then Apps.
- Find ElkNut and tap Permissions.
- Tap Microphone and choose Allow (or Allow only while using the app).
Then reopen ElkNut and tap Record again. No restart is needed.
3. If the microphone is already on
Two other things stop a recording before it starts:
- A Bluetooth headset or earbuds that are connected but asleep. The phone tries to record through them and gets silence. Disconnect them (or turn Bluetooth off) and try again.
- Another app is still holding the microphone — a call, a voice memo, a video app in the background. Close it and tap Record again.
If the message under Record says something other than a microphone problem, or recording starts but plays back silent, tell us what it says and which device you’re on. Recording failures are reported to us automatically on current versions of the app, so we can usually see what happened.