Voice input: ~4 second delay before recording starts (beginning of speech cut off)

[davidandreaskoeper-max]

Environment

• Claude Code version: v2.1.86 (CLI / Windows Terminal)
• OS: Windows 11 Pro (10.0.26100)
• Microphone: AnkerWork S600 (USB, 1ch/16bit/48kHz, speakerphone with echo cancellation)
• Setting: voiceEnabled: true in settings.json

Steps to reproduce

1. Press and hold spacebar to start voice input
2. Immediately start speaking, e.g.: "Hey, ich habe jetzt neu gestartet. Kannst Du mich hören und mit Katja antworten?"
3. Release spacebar after finishing

Expected behavior

Full sentence is transcribed.

Actual behavior

Only the last few words appear (e.g. "...mit Katja antworten?"). First ~4 seconds of speech are lost.

Root cause hypothesis

The audio capture stream is opened AFTER spacebar press but takes ~4 seconds to initialize. Audio during this init phase is silently dropped, not buffered. A pre-roll buffer or stream pre-init on app start would fix this.

Workaround

Wait ~4 seconds after pressing spacebar before speaking — not practical for daily use.

Additional notes

• Disabling Windows audio enhancements (echo cancellation) did not help
• Issue is reproducible 100% of the time
• USB microphone, not Bluetooth (no additional latency expected)
• Tested with multiple sentence lengths, always first ~4 seconds lost

Suggested fix

Pre-initialize audio stream when Claude Code starts (keep stream open/warm) rather than opening it on spacebar press.

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. Voice mode: recording failures, delays, and random cutoffs #40345
2. [BUG] Voice mode on Linux only transcribes first ~2 words before cutting off #34101
3. [BUG] Voice input fails to detect speech ~50% of the time, toggling /voice temporarily fixes #40523

This issue will be automatically closed as a duplicate in 3 days.

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically closed as a duplicate of #40345.

If this is incorrect, please re-open this issue or create a new one.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked since it was closed and has not had any activity for 7 days. If you're experiencing a similar issue, please file a new issue and reference this one if it's relevant.