External mic not working with Apple Facebook app

All you have to do is as soon as you start the FaceBookLive plug in the rode mic. Your iPhone will recognize a device is plugged in and theN it will work instantly. Trust me on this one. I did it today.

I've been trying all kinds of crap since last week when my mic quit working....cables, settings, deleting apps and reinstalling...all to no avail! I just tried plugging in the mic after going LIVE and it worked! Thanks for the hack, hopefully it'll be fixed.

I was able to connect to the external sound source (mixer thru Rode Wireless Go) by using Prism Live downloaded onto my iPhone 11. It adds several additional steps, but gets you to - and basically provides the same result as - Facebook Live. Some of the functions don’t show up until you are “ready” to go live (such as selecting the audience to post to or finding the page you want if you have more than one). However, I am reluctant to try this for an actual church service, so in the meantime, we are just going to use our old iPhone SE (worked yesterday) until Facebook fixes this problem. It has to be a software problem somewhere between Apple and Facebook.

Interestingly, I haven’t upgraded to the 14.2 but... this happened to me and to others I know who have to do lots of live streaming now. Two things I have learned. For me, I only have to do step one. But For others, step two will be necessary.

1. For FB Live, as others have said, begin the live stream and only after it has begun, plug in your device. This seems to be the only step necessary for me.
2. A second step is to then swipe down from the right corner of your iPhone screen and open the iPhone control panel. Choose the audio box (the triangle and rainbow) (see photos) and then choose the device you are connected to.

Again, for me, it only shows headphones. But others seem to have other options.

How this helps.

I contacted facebook about this issue using Help & Support -> Report a problem. This is what I told them....

Facebook Live is not allowing the external microphone of the iphone XS and many other new style iphones to be used. This used to work for me and many other users before 12/14/2020.

When doing a livestream of a band for example. The sound goes through a mixer which goes to the iphone. After plugging in the lightning adapter the sound used to switch from the built in mic of the iphone to the sound source (in this case, a sound mixer).

However, NOW the iphone switches back from the external microphone to the built in microphone immediately. This does not happen with any other application other than Facebook Live, and it is an issue that recently popped up for me and many other users.

Here is an example... (PRIVATE VIDEO NOT COPIED, BUT MAYBE YOU COULD SEND YOUR OWN?)

Here is an apple discussion about the issue...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252051208?answerId=254339886022&login=true

Thank you for doing that! I also contacted them and said the following, I will update if I hear back from them:

Since the most recent Facebook App and Apple IOS system update, any external microphone audio stopped working when doing Facebook Live streamings. Every single app on my phone is able to recognize and record with my external microphone, except the facebook app. I'm not the only one experiencing this glitch, there is hundreds of people who have experience the same. Please look at this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252051208

Please resolve this issue! This is hurting my ability to rely on Facebook for live videos, otherwise I will have to lead my audience away from Facebook and onto other platforms like Youtube.

Thanks for the tips. I just tried to broadcast live within a private Facebook group using Prism. I got an error "Facebook streaming permission has been removed. Log in with a different account, or check your group/page settings."

I can't find any settings that would be preventing a live stream in this group, as I regular broadcast within this it using FB Live. I'm the only admin on the group. Note: this is not a business page or a personal page, it's a Private Facebook "Group" which might be the issue.

I can see my pages, but this is what it says and I don’t know how to change it under the group settings. I want the group to stay private, but I don’t even see anywhere that I can adjust it so that I can stream. Any one know what to do?

I think I found a work around for streaming to pages. I just recorded a live for my church through the Facebook page manager app and it picked up my Shure MV88+ and it worked perfectly. I just turned off automatic updates for my phone so they don’t mess it up.

How does Stream Labs work on a group page? I can’t get it to work on a page only my profile page. Tried prism too and I can connect to the Group page but then it says it isn’t authorized. Anyone have suggestions?

I found a solution!

After thinking and troubleshooting, trying to get the facebook live stream to use external mic like it did prior to updating... I remembered that my ipad does not have "automatic app updates" engaged.

So used my ipad to live stream with the older version of the Facebook app that did not update.

Perhaps this will help others until the Facebook app starts allowing for an external microphone again.

I have the same issue (with a Shure MV88+) although it stopped working before I updated to 14.2 - in fact I updated to 14.2 in the hope it would fix it, which sadly it didn't. I stream weekly and this is very frustrating. Again, the mic works fine in its native app and also in the video mode in Camera so is being recognised by the iPhone.

Same here.... tried a lot of things.. But cable/mic works fine when I connect my Pioneer DDJ800 mixer and record with the dictafoon app and camera/video app! But starting FB live I get the sound of the internal mic... with all the other sounds.

Start FB Live, the put the cable of your external mic/mixer in the iPhone. The. You get only the sound of your external mic/mixer.

Hoping it’s fixed soon.

We work for a major organization called OneBlood. We have a large media department and this phenomenon has also Cut us off at the knees. we use external microphones like a Rhode, Sennheisser wireless units with my IPhone 11 Pro Max. No longer!! We had been testing and scratching our heads for the last couple of weeks as to why we can no longer use these devices. See one advice is to plug in the microphone after you start the Facebook live-that is a startling answer. We have looked all through applications through the iPhone and software in Facebook and cannot figure out why this is changed. Apple!!! Help! Like what’s happened?

I have the same problem AND the same solution that Richbarrier mentioned.

I have to start the Facebook live bbroadcast first, then plug in my external mic. Only thing I have found so far that works.