Cannot get Cortana to work again (Lumia 925, WP8.1)

[Windows Central Question]

Hello,

I hate having to deal with such a miniscule but difficult problem to troubleshoot myself. So here I am.

I've been using Cortana for ages on Beta (UK language, speech, region) with no problems. Until yesterday I set my language to Japanese briefly. This broke Cortana as it said the language/speech settings had to match.

So I set it back to what it was previously. When I bring Cortana up now, it isn't Cortana. It looks like she's there but in actual fact it's just bing search. All it does is say "searching for 'blank'".

I turn off/on Cortana in the settings and when I agree terms and conditions it says she is "absorbing the entire internet, this wont take long". That fails and then says "It's taking me longer than I expected to calibrate things to my statisfaction. You can try again now or come back later". Everytime I come back later I have to restart the phone just to turn her on/off to try again. I've tried it at two different WiFi connections too. In addition to soft resets.

Phone is up to date. What can I do other than a hard reset losing all my data.

This is very frustrating. I've seen, briefly, other people have similar problems but they talk about their microsoft accounts not being valid but I don't think this applies to me?

 

[TechFreak1]

I don't suppose you have tried a soft reboot?

Also follow the steps here to remove the data in the notebook, this should reset everything properly:

www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/how-to/wp8/cortana/cortanas-settings

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[Nigel Weber]

Thank you.The link you provided had the answer. This worked me:

How to clear your data


To clear the items in Cortana's Notebook on your phone:

1.In Cortana's settings, turn Cortana off Toggle off icon, then restart your phone.


2.Once your phone has restarted, return to Cortana's settings.


3.Tap Delete phone data.