Hi there,
i own my BOSE QC 35 II for around 9 months now and i am experiencing the problem like mentioned in the headline. The mic stops working in every zoom or skype call after like 5 minutes.
Until now, i updated the drivers of my bluetooth receiver to the latest available, updated the firmware of my BOSE QC 35 II to 4.8.1, cleared the bluetooth history of my laptop (Razer Blade 15 2019 Base) and the headphones and reconnected.
After connecting the headphones via bluetooth, i start the Zoom app and the headphones are connected (hands-free mode). Sometimes it takes a while, the speakers are then in headphone mode and the mic in hands free, as the hands free mode for the speakers is not available at first.
The outcome is always the same, after 5 min, the mic drops, the sound continues fine, but i am not able to talk anymore and i have to restart the headphones.
The standby function is set to never and the problem doesn't occur when the headphones are used with my smartphone.
This discussion is going on for over a year guys, come on BOSE, you can do better than that. You need to find a solution here asap! More or less the whole world is in HO and your products have bugs which makes them not usable in calls? Unacceptable!
Did you guys at Bose realize there is this problem? Are you guys working on a solution and when are we gonne have a solution to this problem?
(I do not work for Bose)
From what I am reading from your description:
1. You have reinitialized and reset everything
2. You said the you do not have an issue with your phone (though you didn't say if you didn't have an issue with Zoom on your phone)
3. You said the mic stops working around 5 minutes but didn't say if it is different each time or exactly the same amount of time
4. You didn't say if the microphone has an issue with other Voice Over IP (VOIP) applications such as Whatsapp.
As Bluetooth is a 'layered two way communication protocol', the issue or problem can be in any number of places: QC35ii, Windows, BT (Bluetooth drivers), or one or more of the applications. Of course that is assuming that your QC35ii does not have a hardware problem. And I personally doubt the problem is hardware.
Now I am not defending Bose here (though it may seem so 🙂 ) but you need to consider two things assuming it is a software issue somewhere: (1) the issue is not global to the QC35ii as far as I can tell meaning the microphone stopping issue does not happen to all QC35 users when using a VOIP computer bluetooth application. Notice I didn't say specifically a particular app, but even if for arguments sake it happens between a windows zoom or skype and all QC35s but not say Whatsapp, even then it would be 'murky' because that could mean that one side or the other isn't strictly following the BT protocols and it is unlikely that either side would admit to that and so in the unlikely event that was what is happening, getting both ends to investigate would be significantly difficult and would be difficult to prove in the first place. (2) you have exhausted all you can do from a customer point of view on the Bose end. Unless you can technically show that the other side is totally clean and behaving according to the BT specs (perhaps by showing multiple other competitive BT headphones with mics perform perfectly fine without turning off their mics), Bose like most other vendors do (IMHO) will say the fault lies with something on the other side. And then even in the scenario where you can prove the other end is perfectly clean with other vendors, Bose may be reluctant to address the issue unless they judge the impact to be significantly more than just your headphones. They may just suggest an exchange (but we know - firstly it may not be free and you could decline and even with a new unit, the problem could be the same).
So that brings us to the question of what you can do next. In my experience with all my Bose devices and many others as well - especially in the non-mobile/tablet arena (i.e., the windows world), the issue could lie not in the applications themselves but in the two underlying layers. The next layer down are the bluetooth drivers. This has often been the cause of issue for me in other situations. First of all, vendors like Dell, for example, put BT drivers on their sites and these may not be the correct/most recent drivers since Dell does not manufacture the BT hardware. In the case of my laptop, it is Intel and so you need to go to the BT vendor and update your drivers. Also look for ways to change settings for those drivers. There could be for example some sort of timeout setting for the drivers impacting a dormant microphone. Those settings are often coded into the windows registry (and could be BT vendor specific).
Then if that does not work, try older versions of the drivers. The layer below BT drivers is Windows. It could be the issue if there is a conflict between the BT drivers and a windows update. That happened to me once 2 or 3 years ago and I had to uninstall a windows update to allow my Intel BT hardware to work with Bose. You could uninstall updates say back a year or so to see if that helps and if not, put them all back. Then there is the 'severe' option (which Dell always suggests) but that could be time consuming. "Image" your C drive so you can go back to it. Then reinstall windows or use a barebones windows image if you have it. Install just Skype or Zoom and see if the problem still happens.
And finally you can try to totally disable your bluetooth hardware and purchase a USB BT Dongle - anything using "CSR Drivers" is worth trying (get it from eBay or Amazon). I have had success with the SMK Nano but it's no longer being sold. Try to stick with BT 4.x dongles for simplicity even though BT 5.x is backwards compatible.
thank you for your detailed answer, after another clearing of the BT list of both devices (laptop and headphones) and a laptop restart it literally started working out of the blue. Mic now stays on through whole zoom meetings without dropping out.
lets hope it stays that way
thanks again
happy new year guys
cheers!
I have had the exact same problem with my QC35ii and Zoom meetings (purchased 10/2020). Intermittently, it will suddenly stop working. I love the noise cancelling aspect but can't have the mic go out when I am teaching via Zoom.
The response requires too many work arounds for a new laptop and new headphones. Sadly, these are going back. Bose, you have failed me.
Rob
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