GarageBand noise gate issue with vocal recording

recording a vocal and during an longer section of singing, the vocal drops out. If I stop singing and them start again it records again but if I get too quiet it drops out again.

i have tried adjusting the noise gate

and also switching it off

deinstalling and reinstalling garage band but still it does it

the strange thing is even with the gate deactivated it still cuts off the vocal

feels like something has changed in the software

this has never happened in all the time I have recorded with GarageBand

very frustrating

[Re-Titled by Moderator]