Questions and Answers
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Chapter 5. Questions and Answers

This document may have been updated since your installation. You can find the latest version at http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdeaccessibility/.

5.1. kttsmgr immediately crashes when I start it. I compiled with debug support and I don't even get a backtrace.
5.2. ALSA audio output is not working if I am playing music in another application at the same time. When I pause a text job, KTTS freezes. I notice "unable to open PCM" in the Konsole output.
5.3. I need to start over. How do I get KTTS completely terminated?
5.4. How can I see debugging output from kttsd?
5.5. I have an additional Festival voice I downloaded from the Internet. I installed it, and I can use it in Festival, but it does not show up in kttsmgr.
5.6. None of the supported speech synthesizers support the language I need. Where can I get a synth for my language?
5.7. KTTS is speaking too slow. How can I speed it up?
5.8. OK, that works for some things, but web pages are still spoken too slow.
5.9. I cannot get web pages to speak in a female voice. I have female Festival talker configured, but KTTS always speaks web pages in a male voice.
5.10. I have the HTML XML Transformer filter configured, but web pages are not spoken at all using the Festival plugin.
5.11. Certain characters or punctuation seem to be producing errors in the synthesizer, making it skip entire sentences, or pronounce gibberish. What can I do?
5.12. I added a String Replacer filter of my own and now KTTS will not allow me to rewind or advance by sentence. On the Jobs tab, it claims each job has only one sentence. What did I do wrong?
5.1.

kttsmgr immediately crashes when I start it. I compiled with debug support and I don't even get a backtrace.

GStreamer has crashed taking KTTS down with it. You most likely need to "register" GStreamer. For GStreamer 0.8x, the command is gst-register-0.8. If this doesn't solve the problem, you may have an incompatible version of GStreamer installed. You could try upgrading or uninstalling GStreamer.

5.2.

ALSA audio output is not working if I am playing music in another application at the same time. When I pause a text job, KTTS freezes. I notice "unable to open PCM" in the Konsole output.

You have the ALSA device contention problem, which prevents opening more than one PCM device at one time. See the ALSA website (dmix) for possible solutions. www.alsa-project.org

5.3.

I need to start over. How do I get KTTS completely terminated?

Enter the following commands in a Konsole:

killall kttsd
killall kttsmgr

5.4.

How can I see debugging output from kttsd?

Open two Konsole windows. First start kttsd in one window, then start kttsmgr in the second.

5.5.

I have an additional Festival voice I downloaded from the Internet. I installed it, and I can use it in Festival, but it does not show up in kttsmgr.

Edit file $KDEHOME/share/apps/kttsd/festivalint/voices to add the new voice. The other entries can be used as a guide. If you successfully add a voice, please send a patch to the developers along with the URL from which you obtained the voice file.

5.6.

None of the supported speech synthesizers support the language I need. Where can I get a synth for my language?

Google(tm) is your friend. This link might also help. If you find a free synthesis engine that supports your desired language, and want to add support for it to KTTS, please contact the development team. Open source engines are especially welcome. If you know of a commercial synth, perhaps you can pursuade the vendor to donate a free copy to the KTTS development team. In the meantime, you may be able to get the synth working using the Command plugin. See the section called “Using the Command Plugin”.

5.7.

KTTS is speaking too slow. How can I speed it up?

There is a Speed setting on the Audio tab. For this to work, you must have the sox utility installed and available in the PATH. Some synthesis plugins, such as Festival Interactive also provide a Speed setting in the talker configuration dialog. Depending upon the voice used, it may or may not be enabled.

5.8.

OK, that works for some things, but web pages are still spoken too slow.

The speed settings are ignored when KTTS is speaking HTML. (This is because the HTML is converted into SSML, which has its own "rate" tags.) Either disable the HTML XML Transformer filter (see the section called “Filters (Advanced)”), or if you are brave, edit the .xsl file in the HTML to SSML Transformer filter and increase the default talking rate.

5.9.

I cannot get web pages to speak in a female voice. I have female Festival talker configured, but KTTS always speaks web pages in a male voice.

As of Festival 1.95 beta, the SABLE GENDER tag doesn't seem to be working. To keep Festival from producing errors, the SSML to SABLE .xsl file strips the gender tags out. The same applies to voice tags as well.

5.10.

I have the HTML XML Transformer filter configured, but web pages are not spoken at all using the Festival plugin.

Due to a bug in Festival 1.95 beta, you must install the rab_diphone (British male) voice for SABLE to work at all, even if you are not using that voice to speak the web pages. Also, make sure the xsltproc utility is installed and in the PATH.

5.11.

Certain characters or punctuation seem to be producing errors in the synthesizer, making it skip entire sentences, or pronounce gibberish. What can I do?

First, make sure the Character encoding option in the talker's configuration dialog is properly set for the language. If certain words or characters are causing problems, a String Replacer filter might help. If certain sentence punctuation characters are confusing the synth, you'll need to configure a Sentence Boundary Detector filter. See the section called “Filters (Advanced)”.

5.12.

I added a String Replacer filter of my own and now KTTS will not allow me to rewind or advance by sentence. On the Jobs tab, it claims each job has only one sentence. What did I do wrong?

You must not filter out sentence punctuation characters (period, question mark, exclamation mark, colon, and semicolon). For these characters, use a Sentence Boundary Detector filter instead.

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