iPad microphone

(Apologies in advance for the long-ish read.)

My iPad microphone seems to have a mind of its own.

It stopped working a few months ago, and I decided to hold off on a potential repair as it wasn't an emergency. Tried the few obvious solutions I could from reseting settings, to a factory reset but nada. I then decided I'd live with it for a bit longer since I FaceTime with my phone mostly and the iPad functions perfectly fine in all other aspects otherwise including the speakers. Then 3 updates later, the microphone miraculously comes back to life.(I know because I always test the mic after each new update just in case).

Here I am again, over a month later the mic seems to have stopped yet again, and no new updates have changed this since. At this point it's kind of infuriating. Anyone else have an idea why this might be happening or experienced similar?

Thanks