Voice attack stops responding to commands initiated by keyboard

[Krittol]

I am having an issue that i can't seem to find a solution for. I'll start Voice Attack and it will work just fine for roughly half an hour (sometimes longer, sometimes shorter). Then all of a sudden it will completely stop responding to any command I give it using a key press.
When it happens this issue completely stops my push to listen command from activating as well (which I am lead to believe uses the same mechanic?). If I use my mouse to select the earphones icon on the right of the VA window to turn on listening, voice commands will still work, so VA is not completely crashing. However I cant leave that on and only use voice. No command is given to switch off keyboard commands and the keyboard shortcuts icon to the right of the VA window shows keyboard commands are on. Closing VA and restarting it fixes the issue for another half hour or so before I must do it again. The issue is I cant keep doing this, especially in the heat of battle and it is getting really irritating.
What is going wrong with VA to cause this to happen? In case it makes any kind of difference I am using a HCS Voicepack as well as using my own referenced profile. I'm running Windows 10, I am running the latest version of VA and I have already tried reinstalling VA a number of times.
Thanks for any help

[Pfeil]

Does this still occur when you disable plugin support (uncheck the "Enable Plugin Support" option on the "General" tab of the VoiceAttack options window and restart VoiceAttack)?

If so, does the following sequence restore keyboard functionality (note that requires a profile that can be edited directly, E.G. not the HCS Voice Packs profile)?:

• Click
• Click "New Command"
• Click "When I press keys:"
• Press a keyboard key

This would indicate something on your system is breaking VoiceAttack's keyboard hook, meaning keyboard events don't get reported.

As a general precaution, you'll want to run a system file scan

[Krittol]

Hi, Pfeil
I assume you mean the button that looks like a square box with a pencil in it as the one with the + x and back arrow does not contain the "new command" function. I tried entering a new command with a key press and VA would not allow me to program a key in.
Disabling plugin support and switching to my other profile and then back to the HCS Voicepack makes the keyboard shortcuts work again, however I need plugin support enabled for the HCS Voicepack to function.
Running a system file scan does not show any integrity violations

[Pfeil]

I assume you mean the button that looks like a square box with a pencil in it

Indeed, that was the wrong image link.

Disabling plugin support and switching to my other profile and then back to the HCS Voicepack makes the keyboard shortcuts work again, however I need plugin support enabled for the HCS Voicepack to function.

If you run VoiceAttack with plugin support disabled from the start, do keyboard shortcuts still stop working?

[Krittol]

[/quote]
If you run VoiceAttack with plugin support disabled from the start, do keyboard shortcuts still stop working?
[/quote]

I am just trying this now and i will get back to you in a little over half an hour

[Krittol]

Hi Pfeil,
Yes it just happened again with the plugin support disabled.

In case it matters VA does detect Nahimic and says it may cause conflicts? I hadn't heard of this before but i believe it came with my computer. It's only the nahimicservice.exe and not the actual program but after some investigation have discovered it is pointless crap installed with MSI stuff and does cause some conflics with some games. I have disabled it now and will test after work to see if that has done anything and report back to you.

[Krittol]

Turns out the Nahimic app was not the issue either. Anything else it could be?

[Gary]

Not really sure what's killing your keyboard hook, Krittol.  I'm looking into ways to restore the keyboard hook if it is somehow broken.  I don't have an ETA on that, though.   Do you know of any other software that you've got running that uses hotkeys in any way?

[Krittol]

  Do you know of any other software that you've got running that uses hotkeys in any way?

Hi, Gary no other programs that use hotkeys are running at the time - and i have the windows hotkeys (sticky keys and filter keys) disabled. I do have discord installed and i do have a hotkey programmed in that for push to talk, however i rarely use that function and most of the time Discord is not running when I'm running VA.

Unless we are also counting my various controllers and their software to program their commands in. I have them programmed with macros to send various keyboard commands to VA, which are programmed into a secondary profile linked to my HCS Voicepack. For the most part the macros press the corresponding keyboard command for what I want to happen in Elite and then a second command for VA to pick up and provide me with a vocal response to confirm the order/add immersion. I haven't considered this to be causing the issue as the whole thing works for half an hour to an hour before crapping out on me, and all commands work perfectly fine in that time, and they are still working normally after VA stops working.

[Krittol]

Here's a screenshot of my commands list in case it helps

[Krittol]

Hi, Gary. Wondering if you have any answers for me... the issue is starting to become more and more frequent... only 15-20 minutes of use before the keyboard hook is lost

[Gary]

I don't have an answer for you, other than something on your system is killing VA's keyboard hook.  VA is unaware that the hook has been broken (it just stops receiving notification that keys are being pressed). 

Since although it's not completely uncommon that this occurs, it's one of those things where there is an outside influence causing an issue in which VA is unable to recover (for instance, I'm unable to reproduce the problem here, even after several hours of WoW).  Given that, what I'm looking at doing is seeing if there is a way to detect if and when this happens and then look to see if there is a clean, unobtrusive way to reestablish the hook. 

Again, I don't have an ETA for you, unfortunately.

[Krittol]

Hi, Gary. I have an update for you. I found something semi-related to my issue in which the person set the VA window as always on top. After a few gaming sessions i have found that this has greatly improved the amount of time until the keyboard hook is lost. Unfortunately the problem still persists, but so far (after 3 sessions) it is 2 or more hours until the keyboard hook is lost. Meaning it only happens roughly once per gaming session rather than several times. I am still in search of a solution where it doesn't cut out at all, but i am hoping this may help to shed some light on what may be going on. Anything you could tell me to try would be most appreciated. Thanks

[Gary]

Thanks for the update, Krittol.

I added a new function to the 'Windows Misc Functions' action called, 'Reset Keyboard Shortcuts'.  I would try adding that to a command you can speak to try resetting your hooks:  http://voiceattack.com/download