Scam With Your Friends fixes: mic, crashes, AI errors and lobbies

Quick checklist before anything else

1. Update. Close Steam completely (end it in Task Manager if it keeps running), reopen it and let the game update. This is what the developers told players in Discord on October 14, 2026. Patches 0.1.73 (October 17), 0.1.78 and 0.1.82 (October 19) fixed many of the problems below.
2. Repair files. In Steam, right-click the game, then Properties, Installed Files, Verify integrity of game files. The developers' patch posts in Discord (Hotfix 2 and Hotfix 3, October 16, 2026) say to "fully close out Steam and verify files to update"; it also restores missing or changed files.
3. Check the Speech tab (0.1.78): call language, speech recognition, Qwen3 TTS, automatic mic leveling and caller filler words.
4. Type instead. Since 0.1.73 the main menu warns when speech recognition is unavailable and reminds you that typing to callers still works.

Mic or voice recognition not working?

What the patches changed:

• 0.1.73 (October 17): automatic mic leveling, on by default. Turn it off to set the phone's mic level by hand from 50% to 200%. Moonshine English recognition for older CPUs without AVX; Whisper restored on CPUs with AVX but no AVX2.
• 0.1.78 (October 19): new Speech tab; Moonshine now covers six languages (English, Arabic, German, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish), other languages use Whisper. Better mic recovery after unplugging a headset or Windows audio changes, and better mic device selection. Optional Deepgram online recognition with your own Deepgram account and API key (billed to you; the built-in recognition stays recommended for English and Spanish).
• 0.1.82 (October 19): PCs without AVX2 get Moonshine automatically; if Whisper fails, supported languages switch to Moonshine for the session; Whisper startup and recognition time out after 15 seconds instead of hanging.

Players report two more causes:

• Chat box focus. Players report that clicking into the phone's chat box stops voice input; click outside it and talk again (Steam thread).
• Windows input level at 0. Players report that the mic's input level in the Windows recording-device settings can end up at 0, so the game hears nothing (Steam thread).

More on every option: settings.

Crashing or crash on start?

Official fixes so far:

• Hot Fixes (October 15): speech startup crashes on some PCs, including GTX 1650 and RTX 4060 Ti systems.
• Hotfix 2 (October 16): speech startup crashes on older Windows CPUs.
• 0.1.73 (October 17): speech recognition and voice startup crashes on affected PCs; a crash when importing WAV or MP3 voices in the Character Creator.
• 0.1.78 (October 19): PCs using Whisper's GPU compatibility mode keep Whisper on the CPU.

Player-reported workarounds if it still crashes with a Unity error on start:

• Launch option -whisper-cpu. Players report that adding it fixes the crash (Steam: right-click the game, Properties, Launch Options) (thread 1, thread 2).
• Remove ggml-vulkan.dll. Another player report: take this file out of the game folder's Scam With Your Friends_Data\Plugins\x86_64 (Steam thread). Move it somewhere safe as a backup instead of deleting it. Steam's "Verify integrity of game files" puts it back if you want to undo this.

Check your PC against the system requirements too.

"AI service temporarily unavailable"?

Official: Hotfix 2 (October 16) replaced fake caller lines with clear status messages when the AI fails or usage is temporarily restricted, which is where this message comes from. 0.1.82 (October 19) improved AI service reliability and recalibrated usage checks "to reduce false flags during normal play". Hot Fixes (October 15) also fixed a wrong PC clock blocking AI access, so make sure Windows' date and time are correct.

Players report that the host can switch the AI backend in Settings from the built-in one to OpenRouter with their own openrouter.ai API key (thread 1, thread 2). That uses the host's own OpenRouter account. Since 0.1.78 the game warns when that key is missing or rejected and offers a switch back to Official Backend. How callers use the AI: AI callers.

Stuck on "Connecting..."?

Players report getting stuck on "Connecting..." when hosting or joining; that thread has no confirmed fix (Steam thread). What the patches say:

• Make sure everyone runs the same version. Since Hotfix 2 and Hotfix 3 (October 16) the lobby list can sort "My version first", and a lobby on a different version shows update instructions and a Back button.
• Hot Fixes (October 15): better multiplayer reliability during Steam network congestion.
• 0.1.82 (October 19): an unsupported or failed Qwen3 voice setup no longer blocks hosting or joining.

"Recording Unavailable" at the boss review?

Players report the end-of-day boss review showing "Recording Unavailable" (Steam thread). Official: 0.1.73 (October 17) added a backup way to send review recordings through Steam when the normal video connection fails, and 0.1.82 (October 19) improved that recovery and stopped stalled recordings freezing scene changes. The "Disable Call Saving" option (0.1.78) does not cause it: boss reviews still use temporary recordings. Where clips are kept: save files.

Error 0x11C7 when starting?

Players report that this comes from Windows 11 Smart App Control blocking the game's executable because it is not signed (Steam thread). No official fix or statement has been announced. Report it to the developers (see below) so they know it affects you.

Steam says the game is still running?

Official: 0.1.73 (October 17) added a safeguard against the Windows game process staying stuck after quitting. If it still happens, end the leftover game process in Task Manager, the same way the developers suggest closing Steam fully before updating.

Non-English caller voices slow or missing?

Non-English callers use Qwen3 TTS. On launch day the developers asked non-English players to let the Qwen3 download finish on the main menu. What changed since:

• Hot Fixes (October 15): Qwen3 downloads moved to a dedicated server, and a warning before hosting or joining when the better voices are not ready yet.
• Hotfix 2 (October 16): fixed stalled voice loading and Qwen3 blocking caller input; the game reminds you Qwen3 can be turned off if it is too slow.
• 0.1.73 (October 17): Qwen3 needs a compatible GPU and switches off automatically if speech takes too long to start.
• 0.1.78 (October 19): PCs just under 16 GB RAM or 8 GB graphics memory are no longer rejected; Qwen3 gets up to 20 seconds to start, then the game uses its other voice system for that session. Toggle it in the Speech tab.
• 0.1.82 (October 19): Qwen3 options respect your hardware, and local voices load from Windows paths with non-English characters.

Which ten languages get Qwen3 voices has not been announced.

Where to report bugs

• Official Discord: post in the #bugs forum; the #giving-player-log channel explains how to send your player log. The log folder is %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\Jatater Worldwide\Scam With Your Friends\. See Discord.
• In-game bug report form: since 0.1.73 it works even when game sign-in fails, and 0.1.82 added more guidance and AI connection diagnostics to it.