Does not work - Nothing in Command Log

[davelaric]

Hello,

I recently just downloaded VA and I have to say, quite bummed out at the process and setup frustrations after reading through various posts and it still not working. Tried all the troubleshooting steps but even following those instructions are quite impossible as the system won't allow it. I am on Windows 11.

1 -  'Disable Acoustic Echo Cancellation', requires restart for it to apply, after I restart it still shows up as checked.

2 - Microphone levels are being recorded as I can see the grey bar moving. Nothing just happens within VA, no commands or recordings.

https://forum.voiceattack.com/smf/index.php?topic=1635.0 - went through all of these as well, yet to no avail on both the regular release and beta. Hopefully can get it working without having to manually dig through these issues before having to refund. Cheers.

[Pfeil]

Click the wrench icon on VoiceAttack's main window, and on the "General" tab of the VoiceAttack options window click "System info >", choose "Generate Settings Summary", then "Write to File"; Save the file and upload it here.


The "Disable Acoustic Echo Cancellation (could help with recognition)" option is a Windows option, which VoiceAttack merely provides a shortcut to.
If it's not changing, something is preventing Windows from changing it.

[Gary]

I was going to say also that that is a direct setting for Windows (VA is just passing the info through) - if that setting is not able to be changed through, there might be something more going on with your system @davelaric.

Are you the administrator of your machine? (wondering about security) 

Also, are you running VA with the built-in speech engine that comes with Windows or have you installed a Speech Platform 11 speech engine from https://voiceattack.com/alternate ?   Unrecognized commands wont show up in the log with those engines - I'm wondering about noise in your audio channel.  Have you tried another headset/microphone?

Lastly, you'll want to try doing a system file scan to see if something low-hanging may be out of sorts:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/topic/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e

This is good to do from time to time, even if you do not detect any type of issues (not sure why this is not done automatically, tbh).  Make sure to do both the DISM as well as the SFC steps.

If you are using the Steam version, you should get the refund before time runs out and download the demo version (fully-functioning).  Then, use that version to get the issues sorted out first.  If there's something deeper that cannot be resolved, you wont be out anything - repurchase later if you can get things going.

[davelaric]

Hey Gary,

Thanks for getting back to me. Yes I am admin of the machine and am running it as admin. I have tried installing the additional speech packages from the additional resources (I only see speech platform 8 on VA) but I am not 100% sure if they are installing as when I launch the installer, it closes within a second and nothing else happens.

Headset I don't think is the issue as I did all the voice training in Windows and worked flawless as I have an expensive headset. Also did the file scan in Cmd Prompt.

Using the stand alone version, not steam and tried trial, regular and beta version.

[davelaric]

Hi Pfeil,

I've attached the summary.

[Pfeil]

From the information the report provides, there isn't anything obvious that should prevent speech recognition from working, as far as I can see

Something I do see, that's not usually an issue, but is worth trying just in case:
Hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard, and click the wrench icon on VoiceAttack's main window, then in the list of recording devices double-click the "PRO X 2 LIGHTSPEED" device, click the "Advanced" tab, then disable (remove the checkmark for) the "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" option, and click "OK"

Restart VoiceAttack and see whether that makes a difference.


I've also attached a profile to this post for you to import; when the profile is active, if the speech recognition engine generates any recognition events, they should automatically be played back to you.

If you hear nothing, the speech recognition engine basically isn't detecting anything that it can even vaguely consider speech.
If you do hear something, how does it sound?


Lastly, I'll note that the installer for the Microsoft Speech Platform 11 runtime uses a wizard, I.E. it'll ask you to accept a license agreement and such, and the installers for the Microsoft Speech Platform 11 engines should show a window and show a UAC prompt asking you to allow the app to make changes to your device (assuming you haven't turned off UAC)

Especially the former shouldn't just disappear; that's an indication it's crashing.

If this is happening with one specific installer, it could be a corrupted download, but if it's happening with more, and re-downloading doesn't change that, something is unfortunately amiss with your system.

[davelaric]

Small update, managed to get it working but the recognition is very poor. Issue is probably that I cant install the other speech updates due to the installer just automatically crashing after startup. Settings in VA also wont save after I restart (just automatically checks itself). Disappointed but just can't seem to figure it out no matter what I do.

[Gary]

If you are experiencing crashes for basic installers and Windows settings (even user-level settings) are not saving, you've definitely got underlying issues that are going to need to be addressed.  The components involved are obviously what VoiceAttack depends on to run, therefore, VoiceAttack is not going to work properly until those components (and/or the components that the components depend on) are fixed. 

I hate to suggest a reinstallation of Windows when it only appears that VoiceAttack is having trouble, but if there are other applications down the road that also end up depending on the same components, you will be looking at a lot more frustration (usually in unexpected ways).


EDIT - Just to be clear, the Speech Platform 11 installers are built and provided by Microsoft.  Those are not installers built by VoiceAttack.com.

[davelaric]

Absolutely, its more of a Windows issue for sure. Just really wished it worked haha! Can you confirm if Speech Platform 11 is properly installed, would it only be as the default settings or would it show up under the drop down as I only see default or 8.

[Pfeil]

If the Speech Platform 11 runtime is installed correctly, the "Use Installed Speech Platform Speech Engines" option on the "System / Advanced" tab of the VoiceAttack options window will be enabled (I.E. not grayed out)

If at least one Speech Platform 11 engine is installed correctly as well, that should be available in the dropdown you mentioned; if you only see a lightweight engine, you don't have a working engine installed.