Voice Attack Improper Shutdown; Can't start VA

[Mr. Farknocker]

I've been running  the most current versions of VA on my Windows 10 machine for a few years without a hitch until today. Now, when I start VA I get the VA Improper Shutdown message and the option to open the VA Load Options screen. Clicking on this option does nothing.  I tried reinstalling VA and also installing a previous messages but I get the same message. I think the problem is with the windows speech recognition settings. I am, however, able to use the windows speech recognition in other apps like MS Word. The only system change I made prior to receiving the error was creating an exception for VA in Windows Defender to see if it improved overall gaming performance. VA worked after doing that but I never restarted the PC prior to running my games. I deleted the exceptions this morning to rule out Windows Defender as the culprit but I still get the error.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Pfeil]

Is there a VoiceAttackFault.txt file in VoiceAttack's installation directory?

You mention that the problem might be with the speech recognition settings; how did you come to that conclusion?

[Mr. Farknocker]

The fault txt file is attached.

My comment about the speech recognition setting was just a WAGS based on reading stuff online...nothing in particular that I can point to which lead me to that conclusion.

[Gary]

According to the fault file, the config file that VoiceAttack accesses for its settings is either hidden or read-only.  You'll want to first close VoiceAttack, then go into this folder:

C:\Users\Farknocker\AppData\Local\VoiceAttack.com\VoiceAttack.exe_Url_4pinogugfc5ybs4qaajf3fqd3nbyp4lb\0.0.0.1\

Then, right-click on the user.config file.  Click 'Properties' and then take a look at the 'Hidden' and 'Read-only' attributes on the General tab.  If either of those are checked, make sure to uncheck them and click 'OK'.  Launch VoiceAttack and see if things are back to normal.  If neither of those are checked, there's something else going on in your setup - I would go ahead and move that user.config file off to a safe place (out of that folder), and then launch VoiceAttack to see if that file is properly recreated (note that you would then have to re-validate your registration if you are using the standalone version of VA, as that information is stored in user.config).

Normally, this file is freely writable.  I don't know how or even if Defender affects that file when rules are changed.

Hope that helps!

[Mr. Farknocker]

The hidden box was checked. I unchecked it and VA is now back to normal. Ur awesome!  Thanks for the quick response.