Help with frozen keyboard

[Sackmonkey]

I'm trying to set up Voice Attack in DCS and running into a frustrating problem. As soon as I run VA, my keyboard is completely disabled. As soon as I close the app, it works again. Even though I plan to use VA, I certainly still need the keyboard to function when playing DCS.

I've tried changing the target from the active window to "DCS". I've tried turning off commands, disabling listening, keyboard shortcuts on/off, etc. I'm running as an Administrator.

Here's another strange detail: if I change my microphone from my headset to either Oculus Virtual Audio Device or Steam Streaming Microphone then the keyboard immediately starts working fine. I'm not even sure if either of those mics are even real devices.

I've done the Windows voice training and the recognition seems to be working just fine for any commands I've tested... I just need my keyboard back! I've looked through the huge VA PDF and can't find any clues. What am I doing wrong??

[Pfeil]

That is not something VoiceAttack itself does by default.

There is a "Block Keyboard Input" action, but that is not present in the default profile. A profile would need to contain a command that runs on startup and very specifically uses that action.

The effects of the action are also removed if an instruction to stop all commands is issued, E.G. using the button on VoiceAttack's main window, or the "Make VoiceAttack Stop Processing All Commands" action.


If you click the wrench icon on VoiceAttack's main window, and on the "Recognition" tab of the VoiceAttack options window check the "Disable Speech Recognition" box, then click "OK" on the dialog, then "OK" on the options window, and restart VoiceAttack, does the issue persist?

If it does, close VoiceAttack, search the Windows start menu for "Windows Speech Recognition", and start that application. Does the issue occur with that application as well?


While in the state where the keyboard is disabled, does pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del on your physical keyboard have an effect?
That key combination *cannot* be blocked on purpose in software (this is a Windows safety measure)

[Sackmonkey]

Thank you for taking the time to try and help me - sorry it took a couple days to get back to you.  To answer your questions:

- Selecting Disable Speech Recognition did not stop the issue
- Running Windows Speech Recognition did not have any lockup issue
- I couldn't get Ctrl-Alt-Delete to respond either

I do have more clues though.  By luck, I happened to notice that while my keyboard was locked up, another different wireless keyboard was still working!  So I moved the USB transmitter for the locked keyboard from a USB hub to various other direct USB ports and found that if I plugged into the front of the machine, it works.  However, that location doesn't work for me (my desktop machine is too far from my flight sim rig).  I tried a rear port and it didn't work, but if I put a non-powered USB hub between the rear port and the keyboard, it works almost every time. 

I decided it must be some issue with USB hubs, so I eliminated two of them and bought a brand new powered 10-port hub.  The keyboard still has to be in the janky unpowered-hub-to-rear-of-PC config to work though.

However, now the problem has moved to my trackball.  Every time I select the headset mic in Voice Attack my trackball locks up!  The even weirder thing is that if I switch VA to a different mic, close the app completely, rerun it, then switch mics to my headset it works perfectly.  I can speak commands and it responds as I'd expect (perfectly, even!).  Then, the second I run DCS, everything freezes again until I unplug my mic.

I also have the problem where if I set the target to "current window" and play with VA just in Windows, it always fires up the VA PDF file.  I saw someone else complain about this behavior and never saw an answer.  I have no idea if it's related, but I change the target back to DCS to avoid it.

I have uninstalled VA and reinstalled it and see no difference.  Could it be my microphone is defective and somehow causing all this?  I've never used this mic before.

Sorry for typing so much.  I appreciate if you actually got this far.

[Sackmonkey]

I grabbed my nice desktop microphone I use for work calls and found it to have the exact same issues.

Thinking the F14 Profile I'd downloaded must be the problem, I tried a fresh new profile.  I created a single command that would press a key for .1 seconds and didn't do anything else fancy.  It worked fine until I ran DCS (target selected was "current window").  As soon as the DCS launcher ran, the mouse froze again.  Interestingly, I could still say my command and see it being properly detected in the VA window.

I'm running out of ideas.  I feel like I must be making some obvious, dumb mistake.

[Pfeil]

Especially given that Ctrl-Alt-Delete didn't work, and that the issue moves between devices somehow, this seems like it could be hardware/driver related.

If you move the "VAJS.dll" file out of VoiceAttack's installation directory, does that make a difference? That will completely disable joystick support (by removing the components that VoiceAttack needs to interface with those devices)

I also have the problem where if I set the target to "current window" and play with VA just in Windows, it always fires up the VA PDF file.  I saw someone else complain about this behavior and never saw an answer.  I have no idea if it's related, but I change the target back to DCS to avoid it.

This should be unrelated.

It is caused by targeting VoiceAttack itself, and sending an F1 keystroke, which is the standard keyboard shortcut for opening help in Windows applications.

The solution is to configure targeting in a manner that will not cause keystrokes to be sent to the wrong application.
In this case it just opens a help file, but if you're sending arbitrary keystrokes to a random application, that could have all sorts of effects.

[Sackmonkey]

I finally broke down and reinstalled DCS.  Everything is now working perfectly.  DCS was somehow causing the VoiceAttack issue.  VoiceAttack is now working smoothly and I'm able to command my RIO in the F14B perfectly!

Thank you for taking the time to help me out!!  Your support is greatly appreciated.

[Sackmonkey]

DOH!  A clean reinstall of DCS resulted in exactly ONE perfect game.  Everything worked so well - the voice recognition accuracy was so impressive.  Unfortunately, the second game resulted in the same issue of the mouse locking up.  I did a complete re-install *again* and got to play one more good session, then it was back to lockups.  I'm thinking I just have to give up on using VA, unfortunately.  It seems like it's a DCS issue and nobody else is having the problem, so I'm out of troubleshooting ideas.

[Sackmonkey]

FIXED!  Sort of.

I moved the two affected devices (trackball and keyboard) from the 10-port powered USB hub over to a separate, non-powered 3-port hub that plugs directly into the PC.  I have no idea why this works, especially with a NON-powered hub, but it does.  VA is working perfectly now, every time.