Voice attack closing or crashing

[Gibbain]

I have been having a problem with voice attack terminating when in use.  The fault file only has an entry from 2019, so I am not sure if this is a crash or whether the application is closing.   I am not sure which command, if any is causing it to terminate.  I am not using a joystick and plugins are disabled. 

Is there a hotkey or command I could have inadvertently put in a command that would be telling voice attack to close?

When I reopen voice attack, is there some way I can get it to tell me what the last command was that was executed?

[Pfeil]

By "not using", I'll assume you don't have any set up in the "Joystick Options" either.


There is no default hotkey to close VoiceAttack (aside from something like Alt-F4, which closes the current window, but that's a Windows keyboard shortcut).

Likewise, unless you have a "Perform a Window Function" action set up to close VoiceAttack's window, or a "Stop a Process by Name" to kill its process, there shouldn't be any actions that explicitly close VoiceAttack directly.
Of course, if you have a command that send a bunch of keypresses, they could theoretically do any number of things if you direct them towards VoiceAttack itself, but that is true for any application, and it'd be more likely that random things start opening, rather than the application closing entirely.


The last-executed command is not stored, so that information is not available to retrieve on the next startup, unless you were to specifically set up all your commands to write their name to file when they execute, for example.


You could have a look in the Windows event log to check whether the application is crashing: Right-click the start button, choose "Event Viewer" (or search for "Event Viewer" in the start menu, if you prefer), expand "Windows Logs" on the left-hand side of the event viewer, if it isn't already, and choose "Application".
Click "Find..." on the right-hand side, type in "VoiceAttack", and click "Find Next" to cycle through any VoiceAttack-related entries in the log. Crashes are likely labeled as "Application Error" "Error"-level events

[Gary]

Also you might want to look at any antivirus packages you may have and make sure VoiceAttack is whitelisted.

[Gibbain]

There was something in the  windows log as follows:

GENERAL

Fault bucket 1474498922444803963, type 1
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: VoiceAttack.exe
P2: 1.8.7.0
P3: 5f88cc67
P4: voice_de_hans.dll
P5: 0.0.0.0
P6: 5692f590
P7: c0000005
P8: 0003f973
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD1B1.tmp.dmp
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD413.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD424.tmp.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD431.tmp.csv
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD442.tmp.txt

These files may be available here:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_VoiceAttack.exe_4cff97c56a5845956581448a30496d2d929afb_f62ec0d8_2ebc7601-fd36-459b-8101-9d002ce68f1f

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 67c42f89-7427-4daf-8aa0-d84e31b15754
Report Status: 268435456
Hashed bucket: a7b7f575758a7d84247678f52e04cf7b


DETAILS


   1474498922444803963
   1
   APPCRASH
   Not available
   0
   VoiceAttack.exe
   1.8.7.0
   5f88cc67
   voice_de_hans.dll
   0.0.0.0
   5692f590
   c0000005
   0003f973
   
   
   \\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD1B1.tmp.dmp \\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD413.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml \\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD424.tmp.xml \\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD431.tmp.csv \\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERD442.tmp.txt
   \\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_VoiceAttack.exe_4cff97c56a5845956581448a30496d2d929afb_f62ec0d8_2ebc7601-fd36-459b-8101-9d002ce68f1f
   
   0
   67c42f89-7427-4daf-8aa0-d84e31b15754
   268435456
   a7b7f575758a7d84247678f52e04cf7b
   0

[Pfeil]

"voice_de_hans.dll" is not a VoiceAttack component. Are you using a non-microsoft text-to-speech voice?

If so, try switching to one of the voices built into Windows and see if the crash still occurs.


Assuming it's an Ivona voice, a number of users utilize their voices without issue, so you may want to reinstall it to see if that changes anything.

Running a system file scan is also a good idea in general.

You could also try enabling the "Single TTS Instance" option on the "System / Advanced" tab of the VoiceAttack options window if it isn't already

[Gary]

Edit - do what Pfeil had suggested first before all this.

What is the date/time of that log entry, Gibbain?

I see, 'voice_de_hans.dll' - this is an Ivona file.  If you have Ivona installed, it's possible something may be up with it.  You might want to try uninstalling Ivona and then trying to launch VA again.

Something else to try - hold down CTRL + Shift while launching VA to bring up the 'Load Options' screen.  From there, you can disable various elements to see if something helps.

[Gibbain]

I tried the single instance TTS toggle, but it did not make a difference.  It does appear that it is related to the Hans Ivona voice.  I changed all of the speech to a Harpo german voice, but I missed one, and after about 30 minutes, the one command that I left as Hans crashed it. 

I also noticed that there are two error messages in the event log for each crash.  The second is a .NET runtime error.  For completeness sake, I include it here:

Application: VoiceAttack.exe
Framework Version: v4.0.30319
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: System.AccessViolationException
   at System.Speech.Synthesis.TtsEngine.ITtsEngine.Speak(System.Speech.Synthesis.TtsEngine.SPEAKFLAGS, System.Guid ByRef, IntPtr, IntPtr, IntPtr)
   at System.Speech.Internal.Synthesis.TtsProxySapi.Speak(System.Collections.Generic.List`1<System.Speech.Synthesis.TtsEngine.TextFragment>, Byte[])
   at System.Speech.Internal.Synthesis.VoiceSynthesis.SpeakText(System.Speech.Internal.Synthesis.SpeakInfo, System.Speech.Synthesis.Prompt, System.Collections.Generic.List`1<System.Speech.Internal.Synthesis.LexiconEntry>)
   at System.Speech.Internal.Synthesis.VoiceSynthesis.ThreadProc()
   at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(System.Object)
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean)
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean)
   at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object)
   at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

[Pfeil]

As I mentioned, as far as I am personally aware, Ivona voices generally work just fine (they do on my machine, as well), so it'll most likely be an issue either with the installation of that specific voice on your machine, or one of the components it relies on.

You may want to re-download the installer before re-installing the voice, in case corruption occurred during the original download process.

Another thing you could try just in case is the .NET repair tool


VoiceAttack itself would use the same API calls it does for any other SAPI voice, so as this specific one is causing crashes, that'd point to it being the source of the issue.

[Gibbain]

Thanks for you help.  You have a great product and I have gotten literally thousands of hours of use out of it.