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PortAudio

PortAudio is the cross-platform audio I/O library that powers AI Translate's microphone capture in the Live Translation page.

If the Live page shows the banner:

⚠️ Microphone capture needs PortAudio.

…then PortAudio isn't installed (or isn't on the standard library path). Most users never see this banner because PortAudio ships with the sounddevice Python wheel; it only surfaces in stripped-down Python distributions, custom builds, or some container images.

Install

brew install portaudio

sudo apt install libportaudio2

sudo dnf install portaudio

sudo pacman -S portaudio

sudo apk add portaudio

PortAudio ships bundled inside the sounddevice Python wheel — no separate install needed. If the banner still appears, force- reinstall the wheel:

pip install --force-reinstall sounddevice

Verify

After installing, restart AI Translate (or switch tabs once) and the Live page should no longer show the PortAudio banner. If it still does:

  1. Confirm a real microphone is plugged in / enabled in your OS.
  2. On Linux, check that your user is in the audio group: 
    groups | grep audio
    If not, sudo usermod -aG audio $USER and log out / back in.
  3. Open the Live page and pick Microphone as the audio source — the banner re-evaluates on every show, so the moment PortAudio becomes available the warning clears without an app restart.

See also