KF2 Microphone Not Working Fix and How to Mute the Trader

This community guide covers two things: a troubleshooting order for microphone problems that appeared around March 2017, and a small file trick for people who want to get rid of the Trader's voice lines and listen to the sound of war only. The author is Polish and his wording is informal, so the steps below are cleaned up.

Microphone problems: what to try, in order

The author lost about a day and a half to the issue. He first suspected his dedicated server config (he had raised the tick rate from 30 to 64 and changed the default port 7777), but the culprit turned out to be the game client.

1. Device Manager. Look in the sound section. If several audio devices are listed and you only use one, uninstall (not just disable) the unused ones.
2. Drivers. Update your sound drivers.
3. Windows recording settings. Control Panel, Sound, Recording, open your microphone's Properties. On the Levels tab make sure it is not muted and set it loud but not to the maximum. On the Listen tab enable "Listen to this device" to confirm the microphone hardware works. Then on the Communications tab choose "Do nothing".
4. Playback device settings. Check the properties of the device you use and set the proper speaker layout (stereo, 5.1, 7.1). Many voice programs send a signal to the centre speaker. Do not change speaker settings while in game.
5. Delete the Config folder in Documents\My Games\KillingFloor2 if you see authorization problems or "connection to server lost".
6. Delete the Cache folder in the same place if you have workshop file version collisions or cannot download server files. You do not need to download anything by hand: the game restores everything from the Steam KF2 folder at the next launch. The more workshop content you had, the longer the black screen on first start will take (the author's 16 GB cache took about 10 minutes).
7. Delete the whole Killing Floor 2 folder in My Games if the above does not help.
8. Check your router. Make sure the KF2, Steam and VoIP related ports are still forwarded. A port forwarding walkthrough for the game exists at portforward.com (Killing Floor 2 page).
9. Verify game files in Steam.
10. Check or repair the registry with a system maintenance tool if you use one.
11. Reinstall. Uninstall Steam and Killing Floor 2. This can be done in stages: first move your steamapps folder out of the Steam directory (or back it up), then if the mic is still dead uninstall KF2 itself, and check for leftover files afterwards.

The last step solved it for the author, though he does not know whether the cause was Steam or KF2.

Silencing the Trader

If you play with an equalizer tuned for gunfire and find the Trader's voice grating, you can disable it by renaming one file:

1. Go to ...\Steam\steamapps\common\killingfloor2\KFGame\BrewedPC\Packages\Audio\Voice.
2. Rename WW_VOX_NPC_Trader.upk to WW_VOX_NPC_Trader_MOVED.upk.
3. Join a server. The game will download WW_VOX_NPC_Trader.upk again into the same folder.
4. Go back to the folder, delete the freshly downloaded WW_VOX_NPC_Trader.upk and leave WW_VOX_NPC_Trader_MOVED.upk in place.

For more voice-related file swaps see changing the voice language via files.