Wow, how frustrating for you. Looks like you've tried everything. Have you considered scrapping the S/R control and going full Bing? It's a much better S/R platform. However you need to always be connected to the internet and that limits you traveling with the robot away from your wifi signal.

I'm no expert but I have had my share of sound issues I've worked through. Lets look at a few things. What follows is my personal "Idiot's Guide" to my personal sound issues :

Are you using an external USB mic one plugged into the Mic jack or the laptop mic? I've found that when I use a USB mic that Window's sets it up and I need to use that one as my default recording device.

When you're in Windows recording settings window and you see the several devices you mention, you see a sound vertical sound level graph to the right of the default device. When you speak or tap the mic do you see the level jump and fall? If so that's the one you are actually using and it's working (forgive if you already know this). If you don't see that rise and fall , single click on the device to highlight it then click on it's Properties. The on this next window you will see tabs at the top. Sometime, I use the listen tab to actually hear what is being heard from the mic through headphones or the computer's speaker (depending on what I choose). You need to click on "Listen to this Device", choose the playback device then click Apply at the bottom. When you done you'll need to reverse this process to stop hearing yourself when you speak. Next look under the Level tab. Raise your Microphone and Microphone boost up (maybe all the way?) and see if that helps. Also make sure the little speaker icon is not callicles and muting your microphone.

Also try using each recording device listed with your mic and raise the levels as mentioned above . With me I've found I need to use a different device listed other than the one I thought it would be.

In the distant past of EZ Robot's people were having problems using S/R with other languages other than the US setting. I've never had to do this so I may be wrong on the process; Did you try changing your whole Windows OP through Windows control Panel / Language or just Window's S/R control? Maybe you need to set your entire Window's OP platform to the English/US and the Window's S/R control.

Lastly, try deleting the ARC S/R control and reinstalling it.

Good luck and have fun.

@ptp

Thanks for the advice. When I start "Run" and copy/paste the info you supplied in your post, I either hit "OK" which opens speech properties, or click "Browse" which gives a list of four files but not sure what to do with them.

@Dave.

Thanks for the post buddy. Yeah I make you right about the Bing setup which does work pretty well, but would like to solve the native S/R control issue so I don't have to be online. So in regards to your "things to try" list...

I am using then on-board mic at the moment. It's a good mic, (not ideal for speech rec, I know, but okay for testing), but everything I have tried that works... works really well.

Yes the green graph goes up and down very well, so mic gain setting are okay there. I have found that when I adjust mic levels and save them, it sometimes reverts back to the previous setting? Rather annoying, but do remember it doing this on an older laptop with Windows 8.1 and 10, so levels is something I check on often.

I have tried the device options I have, with different combinations of what's enabled and what's not. No joy

I have just tried setting the system to US, but has not made any difference I'm afraid. But saying that, using "Category" in "Control Panel", then "Clock, Language, Region", I noticed that the language preference for "English, United Kingdom" was available for download and not enabled. I downloaded it, set everything back to UK, opened a new EZ project, added the speech rec control, set it to en-UK, saved it and the debug message now says...

Quote:

Speech Recognition Culture: en -UK Loaded speech recognition successfully

Quote:

@ptp

Thanks for the advice. When I start "Run" and copy/paste the info you supplied in your post, I either hit "OK" which opens speech properties, or click "Browse" which gives a list of four files but not sure what to do with them.

You will want to run it and go into the speech properties and test speech reco from there. I believe what @ptp was saying is that this is a different speech engine than the one used by Cortana or some other Windows 10 apps, so needs to be set up independently.

Alan

Oh, that's what I have been doing already but assessed the Speech properties via the control panel, speech recognition, advanced settings.

I just wonder if there's a package I need to download/instal?

Taking some time out now as I've been on this for most of the day and take another crack at it tomorrow, lol. Anyway date night tonight so I'm taking my girl to watch the new Bladerunner movie.

Any more thoughts or suggestions... keep them coming guys.

Thanks.

OK, nucular option; uninstall ARC, download and reinstall the latest version. You may have something broken in the background of ARC. Or it may reconnect something that was broken between Windows and ARC. Couldn't hurt.

@Dave.

Thanks buddy, I will give that a try. It was a fresh instal when I first started with this a couple of days ago, the the recent update. But I will wipe it all and try it again.

Btw, I enjoyed Bladerunner 2049. Anyone who hasn't seen it and is a fan of the original, I recommend you give it a go.

Since you mentioned Windows Speech Recognition working, I did a little experimenting today to see if leaving it running might be causing a conflict. Doesn't seem to be the case.

I am at a bit of a loss on this one.

As is common with these kinds of things, it will probably wind up being something really simple we are all missing. Doesn't appear to be an ARC bug, but temporarily changing your settings to US or Canadian English from UK English might be worth a try.

Alan