Cortana only doing bing searches

cnjvh

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Jan 27, 2013
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Got mine working (maybe just chance?)

1. Go into Settings -> Cortana and and disable Cortana (allow restart)
2. After reboot, go into Settings -> Cortana and delete all local Cortana data
3. From the same section, go to Manage Cloud data and delete all the available options (interests, what she know about you, etc).
4. Reboot.
5. Start Cortana from the tile and allow her access to your phone (she didn't do the full setup for me here so all my interests were blank). Once you're at the main screen, add an interest or two BUT DON'T ASK HER ANYTHING HERE. Just back out to the home screen.
6. Launch Cortana with a long press of the Search button and ask her "how do I look" or "tell me a joke" or something. For me everything started working again here.
7. Go back in and fill in all your interests, places, inner circle, etc.

As mentioned above, deleting all your local/cloud Cortana data will result in a blank slate. She may or may not ask all the setup questions so be prepared to rebuild your Cortana identity manually.
 

AzmoD3uS

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Sep 24, 2011
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Well if it was (only) a server side issue, why can some people fix it by resetting their devices? Do you think the problem is that some handsets fail to connect to the servers for the initial setup and then won't try again unless you reset the phone which may lead to success at some point?

EDIT: It would be awkward though if retrying the initial setup only once led to success for so many people. So it does seem to be a client side problem for some devices with a certain state of the OS (e.g. some preferences that prevent Cortana to connect to the servers correctly).

Or it could well be the server side having trouble communicating with the client side of things. That could explain why some hard resets work.

Just checked right now, weather is working flawlessly!
 

MadFoodScientist

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Nov 12, 2012
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Got mine working (maybe just chance?)

1. Go into Settings -> Cortana and and disable Cortana (allow restart)
2. After reboot, go into Settings -> Cortana and delete all local Cortana data
3. From the same section, go to Manage Cloud data and delete all the available options (interests, what she know about you, etc).
4. Reboot.
5. Start Cortana from the tile and allow her access to your phone (she didn't do the full setup for me here so all my interests were blank). Once you're at the main screen, add an interest or two BUT DON'T ASK HER ANYTHING HERE. Just back out to the home screen.
6. Launch Cortana with a long press of the Search button and ask her "how do I look" or "tell me a joke" or something. For me everything started working again here.
7. Go back in and fill in all your interests, places, inner circle, etc.

As mentioned above, deleting all your local/cloud Cortana data will result in a blank slate. She may or may not ask all the setup questions so be prepared to rebuild your Cortana identity manually.


This worked for me! Thanks for posting this method!
 

ajayden

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US user here. Put 8.1 on my Lumia 1020 on Monday. Cortana pretty much only does Bing searches for me. She'll tell me the weather, and how many grams of protein are in a ham sandwich; but not who her father is, and she certainly wont sing me a song.




Did you ask "Sing a song"





Sent from my Nokia Lumia 1020 using Tapatalk
 

SailRacerX

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Lumia 1020 here. I put 8.1 on my phone on Tuesday of last week (the 15th), and she was only doing Bing searches until Wednesday night. I tried everything short of the hard reset. She's been working quite well since. Occasionally I'll ask something I expect a response to and get a Bing search in response. The joys of Beta software.
 

Matt Viel 222

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Simple fix...are location services turned off due to paranoia (perhaps justified) or the fact that no phone manufacturer has figured out how to power a modern smart phone in high use longer than 5 hrs? Location services off equals the lovely Cortana only searches took me a bit, but figured that one which should be pointed out by the WP team right off the bat...come on MS; do you want in the market or not !!!
 

FrodoBaggins

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Since this thread got resurrected, thought i'd share something. Last night cortana did something strange - she would not do any local lookups or calandar events, however chit-chat worked. An error message did show up, but only for a fraction of a second before bing results came up, I managed to get a screenshot of the error below though - just to verify I was connected to wifi at the time. She works now, just thought i'd share.

mbfcSWP.jpg
 

Maaz Mansori

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So, I rolled back to WP 8 and updated to Lumia Cyan/WP 8.1 on my AT&T 1520 yesterday and then did a hard reset. I didn't really test Cortana until this morning. I can't get her to work properly. She still does things like tell me the weather or set an alarm but most things she is just doing Bing searches, even if I ask 'How are you?" or just say "Hi" or "What's your name" or whatever she just does a Bing search instead talk. Any ideas here? Anyone else having issues?
EDIT: And yes, location is turned on and the weather works.
 

Kelly Peterson

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So, I rolled back to WP 8 and updated to Lumia Cyan/WP 8.1 on my AT&T 1520 yesterday and then did a hard reset. I didn't really test Cortana until this morning. I can't get her to work properly. She still does things like tell me the weather or set an alarm but most things she is just doing Bing searches, even if I ask 'How are you?" or just say "Hi" or "What's your name" or whatever she just does a Bing search instead talk. Any ideas here? Anyone else having issues?
EDIT: And yes, location is turned on and the weather works.

I don't have a resolution for you but I am having the same issue so your not alone.
 

Jayson Goldman

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Jul 25, 2014
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Yes. This is happening to me. She will respond with voice based on apps (e.g. weather) to things like "Do I need a coat?" but the "tell me a joke" and other ones she is supposed to respond to (I guess) from her server are all just going straight to BING web search results. I would really like to hear if anyone has found a solution. (I am using AT&T 8.1 loaded yesterday on my Nokia 1520.
 

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