The game opens two input streams while it starts and leaves both stopped through ordinary play, and each open took the system's default recording device and held it, paused, until the game ended: Windows shows the microphone as in use for the whole session, and a Bluetooth headset can drop to its call profile. An open now checks that a default input exists and prepares the stream and its bounded buffer; the device is opened at StartInputStream and released at stop or close, after which the game can still read or purge what was buffered. A start that is refused returns an input error and can be tried again.
tests/audio_input_check.py did not compile on this line (it had no stand-in for the microphone setting); with the change it builds and passes: idle streams hold no device, a refused start can be retried, a stop releases the device and keeps the unread frames, two streams are independent. Not checked with a real microphone in the game.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.2 <noreply@anthropic.com>
