Voice input broken in CLI: shows 'processing' but only inserts spaces, no transcription

Description

Voice input in Claude Code CLI is enabled (voiceEnabled: true in settings.json) but does not produce any transcription. The status bar shows Voice: processing... but only blank spaces are inserted into the input — no actual transcript appears.

Screenshot

<img width="941" height="253" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/83ef9f10-3bfa-4ad3-8689-b924d88de1dd" />

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enable voice input ("voiceEnabled": true in ~/.claude/settings.json)
2. Launch claude in terminal
3. Speak into the microphone
4. Observe the status bar shows Voice: processing...
5. Only spaces are inserted into the prompt — no transcription

Expected Behavior

Spoken words should be transcribed and inserted into the chat input.

Actual Behavior

• Status bar shows Voice: processing...
• Only blank spaces are spammed into the input field
• No transcript is ever pasted

Environment

• Claude Code version: 2.1.83 (reinstalled via curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash)
• OS: macOS (Darwin 24.6.0)
• Shell: zsh
• sox installed: No (which sox returns not found)
• Claude Desktop app: Installed (was previously deleted and reinstalled during debugging)
• Microphone: Working (voice works fine in the Claude Desktop app)

Troubleshooting Attempted

• Restarted Claude Code CLI
• Killed all Claude processes and restarted cleanly
• Reinstalled Claude Code CLI (uninstalled npm version, reinstalled via official install script)
• Toggled voice off/on with /voice
• Reinstalled Claude Desktop app
• No voice-related entries found in ~/.claude/debug/ logs

Notes

• Voice input works correctly in the Claude Desktop app with the same microphone
• The CLI appears to detect audio input (hence "processing...") but fails to transcribe
• Debug logs under ~/.claude/debug/ contain no voice/transcription-related entries, making it hard to diagnose
• sox is not installed, which may be relevant if the CLI depends on it for audio capture