It seems you're encountering a specific issue with Cereproc voices causing ARC to crash when attempting to use text-to-speech functionalities. This problem might be related to compatibility issues between the Cereproc voices and the ARC software or a potential bug within ARC itself when handling these specific voices.

Here are a few steps you can take to troubleshoot and potentially resolve the issue:

1. Verify Cereproc Voice Installation: Ensure that the Cereproc voices are correctly installed on your system. You can do this by checking if these voices are accessible and functioning outside of ARC, for example, through the Windows Text-to-Speech settings.

2. Update Cereproc Voices: Check if there are any updates available for your Cereproc voices. An outdated voice package might not be fully compatible with the latest version of ARC or Windows.

3. ARC Software Update: Although you've mentioned updating ARC to the most recent version, it's good to double-check if there's an even newer update available. Sometimes, issues are resolved in minor updates that are released shortly after major ones.

4. Check ARC Logs: ARC might generate logs that can provide insights into what's causing the crash. Look for any error messages or warnings related to speech synthesis or Cereproc voices in the logs.

5. Try Different Voices: As a test, try selecting a different voice, such as one of the default Microsoft voices, and see if ARC still crashes. This can help determine if the issue is isolated to Cereproc voices.

6. Reinstall ARC: If none of the above steps work, consider uninstalling and then reinstalling ARC. This can help resolve any corrupted files or settings that might be causing the issue.

7. Reach Out to Synthiam Support: If the problem persists, it might be a more complex issue that requires attention from the Synthiam support team. While direct support contact is not the first recommendation, sharing your experience on the Synthiam community forums can be helpful. The community or the Synthiam team might offer additional insights or solutions.

Remember, when troubleshooting, it's beneficial to make one change at a time and test after each change. This approach helps identify what specifically resolves the issue.

@Jeremie

Started a new project just recently, trying to use my Cepstral voice. Its been years since installing it for the first time but did get it working back then.  At first, on the new project I wasn't even able to get the voice to even load into Arc, and to tell you the truth, no clue what I did to finally get it too! LOL My putter would sometimes lock up after that, screen would turn white. I looked into the Speech Synthesis Settings just to have some fun with the voice but ran into a problem getting the settings back to a default. This is the recent post ... https://synthiam.com/Community/General/Speech-Synthesis-Settings-22161. Finally was spending too much time on getting it to work right, decided to take a break and come back later with a fresh mind.

Just wanted you to know that things were not going smooth for me either. I will be keeping a eye on this post.

Good Luck

I think this was brought up before, too - but I can't remember more details. I'm unsure if there are two versions of the installer from them, but make sure it's a 32-bit engine installed because ARC runs in 32-bit mode (I think it matters in the Windows speech engine). Secondly, their program installs into Windows and adds voices to the Windows speech synthesis engine, which is unrelated to how ARC works. ARC is unaware of additional voice engines because ARC loads the default Windows speech library and uses that. If selected, Windows generates the speech and uses the 3rd party engine. I don't mean 3rd party to Synthiam; I mean 3rd party to Microsoft Windows. I wish I had better suggestions, but I'm unsure what else I can provide. Is there a configuration utility of some sort with their program? If so, maybe there's a checkbox or something in there for configuring 32-bit mode or something, if that's even causing it?

Does that speech engine also work with other Windows utilities or tests? There might be a speech testing program in the control panel.

If any error is generated, it might not hurt to check their forum or support to see if they have suggestions.

Thanks Herball and DJ,

I tried using the voice directly in Windows (Start>Control Panel>Ease of Access>Speech Recogntition>Text to Speech) and surprise, surprise it crashed the test program. I'll do a few more tests but I've also contacted Cereproc directly. It's weird to me that I think I did have it working a few months ago, and now it's crashing. I'll reinstall it and see what happens.

My gratitude to you gentlemen for your time and suggestions!

There was only one version of the installer. I uninstalled and reinstalled the Cereproc Utility program and it now works! It works both in the Windows test window and in ARC. The issue was just on my system.

I feel bad now for wasting your time, but my hope is that this may help someone in the future.

I will credit DJ for the solve, as he inspired me to just reinstall the Cereproc software.

haha well thanks It's tough having all these other software to support because when they have a problem, it looks like our problem lol. In this case, it's even more complicated because it's a Cereproc problem, that becomes a Windows problem, which becomes ARC problem.

Because it goes ARC -> Windows -> Cereproc.

That makes it harder to debug because the issue is one level of technology away from us. But, I'm super glad that it was resolved because I was trying to think of what could possible affect it from our end and kept coming up with blanks.