I've put this question up on SuperUser.com, which is much better than a standard forum:
SuperUser.com: Skype for Linux: Microphone works 50% of the time per SkypeOut call (beta password: ewok.adventure )

I have Skype 2.0.0.13 for Linux, and whenever I make a SkypeOut call to a phone, sometimes the microphone works, and sometimes it doesn't. It's completely random, and it's about 50% either way. By that I mean there's a 50% chance of the mic working every time you make a call, so restarting the program doesn't affect anything.

Every other application that uses the microphone works fine. My guess would be that Skype is switching between microphone configurations for some reason. It's very hard to search for this problem, of course, because there's no consistent way to describe it.

I'm running Ubuntu 9.04.

I have a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 running the emu10k1 driver.

Skype's "Sound In" is configured as: SB Live 5.1 SB0220 (hw:Live,2)

I've also killed pulseaudio, which has been known to cause sound problems, and it didn't help.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Hiya,
I was just reading your post before.

Can you be more clear about what exactly you want to know please? Do you mean your skype microphone does not work? or any program in your pc?

Thanks
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You sure about the version?

try the 2.0.0.72 and boot without pulseaudio (or read the forums howto make it work)

regards