Hi everybody.
It's been a while since I've posted, so before I continue I just want to say a big hello to the regulars on here such as Alan, Dave S and David C, Richard, Will, Justin, Patrick and all the others... you know who you are. And of course a big hello to DJ, Jeremie, Alan and the rest of the team. I hope that you are all doing well.
So after a year of laying dormant, I decided to blow the cobwebs away and fire up my Astromech Droid "E4-B4". So far so good but needs a little bit of fettling which leads to the point at hand to an issue I need some help with.
I fired up E4's Acer W3 tablet with the old version of ARC still installed, and also installed ARC on to my Alienware 15 (2016 version) laptop (Windows 10) with the current ARC version. The W3 is not holding its charge so I'm working with the Alienware. Couldn't connect the EZ-B v4/1 at first, but that was down to AVG antivirus so it's disabled for now and connection is all good.
The problem i can't get my head around is with the speech recognition control. I've set up Microsoft speech recognition (S/R) on the laptop, done voice training, set up the mic (type, levels etc) and checked that the mic is enabled. I've made sure that the S/R in the laptops control panel is set to "Microsoft Speech Recognizer 8.0 for Windows (English - UK), and the ARC S/R control is set to en-GB. The problem is when I save the en-GB setting on ARCs S/R control. First, when I start up the project, I get the following pop up message...
Quote:
Voice recognition was not able to start. System.Exception: There is either no listening device or your operating system is not supported at EZ_Builder.UCFormSpeechRecognition.knktDlvxCWI(Object ,EventArgs
Second, when I clear the pop up and continue, select en-GB in the S/R confit menu and save it, I get the following debug error message...
Quote:
Set Dictionary Error loading phrases (custom): The Language for the grammar does not match the language of the speech recognizer.
I have tried setting the laptops speech properties to "Microsoft Speech Recognizer 8.0 for Windows (English - US) and ARC S/R control to en-US just to see if that would work, which doesn't show any debug error message, but doesn't work. I change back to en-UK, and get the same debug message as before. I have also tried restarting ARC and restarting the Laptop as well, to no avail. I've gone through the tutorials again just to familiarise myself with the control again. The actual Microsoft Speech recognition program is working on the laptop as I can open and close programs, dictate text on Notepad etc.
So does anyone have any ideas or suggestions to what I can try to get the speech recognition up and running again, maybe something like an update or installation for windows S/R or something? Any help, as always, will be appreciated.
Many thanks guys.
Steve.
Hello @Steve G! Great to have you back!
@DJ.
Hey buddy. Really pleased to hear you're doing good. I have been checking in from time to time to see what's been going on. Really pleased to see lots of new users.
Thanks for expanding on your answer. Alan did mention about verifying about the mic being configured as an input device, so will deffo check on that. Thanks. I've put an order in for a v4/2 dev kit and an ioTiny which are on their way to me now as we speak. Look forward to playing with them. Love the new Robot Program btw. Very cool and informative.
@Jeremie.
Thanks for the warm welcome back. I've missed you guys and pleased to be back. I'll try out the advice given tomorrow and post my results.
@nomad.
Boot beep bop bleep. Good to see you're still around buddy.
Thanks for the robot program feedback! It's a huge initiative but seems to be slowly catching on. I'm really enjoying participating in the episodes. Professor e is great!
Hi Steve! Good to see you back and building. I hope everything is doing better with you and your family then was last time we chatted. I know you had some dark days back then.
Hopefully the suggestions you've been given by the guys will set you in the right direction. I bet you'll find your microphone issues Within the recording settings section of windows like was mentioned. Good luck.
Steve G, Glad to see your back on the forum, I have always enjoyed your work. Steve S
Hi Dave.
Good to hear from you. Yeah it was a tough time back then, but I'm doing pretty well now. Settled in to my new house by the coast now and very happy here. I figured now would be a good time to blow the dust off my tools and get busy with robots again, lol.
Thanks Steve. It's nice to be back and good to see you're still around as I've always enjoyed your work too.
So back to my problems with S/R.
At the moment I have three recording devices... "Microphone", "Line in" and "Stereo Mix" on my laptops sound menu. I have disabled line in and stereo mix and only have microphone enabled. Still no luck. So here's what I've tried so far for UK settings...
IN WINDOWS: Set language to Microsoft Speech Recognizer 8.0 for Windows (English - UK) Set up microphone, Configured microphone, Trained computer to better understand you (both courses), Under "Advanced" selected "Use this audio input device". Opened and tested Microsoft Speech Recognition which successfully opened/closed programs and dictated text to notepad and Word.
IN ARC: Opened new ARC project and added S/R control. Opened config menu, reduce confidence to 50%, setup microphone, selected en-GB, saved settings. When config menu closes, I still get the debug message...
So after that didn't work, I repeated the entire process again from scratch, but this time using the US language instead of UK. Microsoft Speech Recognizer 8.0 for Windows (English - US) and setting the ARC S/R control to en -US. This time the debug window shows... but nothing I say is recognised or I believe, even heard as in both instances, the S/R control's "spectrum analyser" does not register that any sound is being picked up. I tired @ptp's suggestion and downloaded the plugin, and the only enabled microphone device that I am using was indeed listed in the Audio Toolbox Configuration.One other thing I tried was to go to the Add Control... Audio and add the Microphone control and Sound servo (PC Mic) control to the new project. Unlike the S/R control, both of these controls are indeed picking up audio input from the laptops microphone, as seen on the controls spectrum analyser's and audio level readout seen in the photo below...
So I believe that from what I've outlined above from the testing I did this morning, I have established that this is not a microphone issue, but rather a language issue (although I'm not sure why the S/R control is not picking up any audio). I'm out of ideas now of what to try next. Any thoughts guys?
Thanks.
ADDITIONAL:
I just tried adding the Pandorabot control as this uses speech recognition as well. Using text input worked and Pandorabot responded. However using speech also did not work with no visual display on this controls spectrum analyser showing. I don't know if this means anything, but i have noticed that both the spectrum analysers on the speech recognition and Pandorabot controls are white (like they are greyed out, so to speak) where they used to be black.
Like a said, I'm not sure if this means anything, or if this was a simple cosmetic change from a black background to a white one done in an update. Figured i would cover all the bases... just in case.
Okay, a bit of an update to my previous post.
In an aim to dial in the problems I am having, I have just tried the "Bing Search Test" project in ARC and Bing speech recognition plugin, and had success with that. I verbally asked a few questions to the Pandorabot in the project, speech recognition was successfully picked up, and answers were returned. I also noticed that the debug window on this project says that the speech recognition culture is set to en-US.
So just need to figure out whats going on using the ARC speech recognition control and my laptop/copy of Windows 10.
@SteveG
Windows 10 has a new Speech API ("code name" One Core) and introduced the UWP (universal windows platform) a new framework to develop universal applications only available via Microsoft Store.
ARC is a desktop app and uses the legacy Speech API (SAPI).
Please check your SAPI settings:
verify and adjust the speech recognition and tts settings.