Windows 10 mobile made text-to-speech and dictation useless

Apr 8, 2016
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First of all let me state that even though my phone is a Lumia 535 I decided to post in the general Windows 10 mobile forum because I don't think this is a model-specific issue.

When I bought that little piece of awesomeness one month ago it was running Windows Phone 8.1 with the Denim update. WP 8.1 is pretty cool, especially with Denim. But I like to have all my devices running the latest OS and try new features. In the short time I've spent using WP 8.1 (four days passed between the purchase and the update - I've updated the day the W10 rollout began) I had the device configured to read my messages out loud.

But nothing, NOTHING seems to work on W10. I have the keyboard configured to show the microphone, but it's nowhere to be seen. Text-to-speech doesn't work anymore, and Cortana will probably be available here a few days after the nobody-cares-anymore deadline. I really feel when it becomes finally available I'll be old and will spend the whole day working as a slave on a Mars colony. Well, I hope it happens a bit sooner, but I won't hold my breath :angry:

I know the language settings must be the same as my region for voice recognition and text-to-speech to work, but that's not possible. The UI language is configured to Spanish (Argentina) whereas there's no such language for the keyboard. Available options include only Spanish (Spain) and Spanish (Mexico). Text-to-speech languages don't include Spanish (Argentina), either. I guess I could solve it by trying some of those language variations but that's impossible. Every time I try to install a language pack, it begins installation and then fails with an 0x80070020 error. A little googling revealed that this usually happens when a download or a firewall/antivirus interferes with the installation. That's not the case; I have no firewall/antivirus enabled and there were no downloads in process (I checked the store and I wasn't using the browser).

So even though I love my phone and the OS I feel I'm being left with half the OS, considering that MSFT is promoting Cortana as the most awesome virtual assistant since Synergy (and that was in 1985 and wasn't even real). I mentioned Cortana because I don't know whether text-to-speech and dictation are Cortana-dependant.

Not that having text-to-speech or dictation is really important, but I come from Android, and let me tell you that Google Now worked like a charm and dictating wasn't an epic adventure. It just worked - something that MSFT doesn't seem to give me, even with the .218 update.

Last but not least, I know I can change the region but that would have some undesired consequences (WIndows Sotore problems, for example).

Any help would be appreciated. Otherwise take this just as a rant.
 
Apr 8, 2016
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Today I tried something else: Since the error is caused by (an)other app accessing the file, I disabled all the backup featurs. That didn't work, so I revoked all background operation permissions. Still didn't work. Now this is driving me crazy. I nwver had a bug that crippled the system so badly on Android.

My research took me to the official Microsoft Answers comunity. Their answer is just trying a soft or hard reset. According to some answers, neither works.

Guess I shouldn't have trusted the company who gave us Windows ME and Vista.
 

Guzzler3

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One last thing, do a hard reset, and do NOT restore from a backup.

I just got a new WM10 phone yesterday (old WP8.1 took a nasty fall), and I did the normal setup of having it use the current backup. I know MS tries really hard to make the upgrades seamless, but WP8.1 to WM10 isn't always pretty. I too had issues with some apps and features not working properly. Gave up, did a full reset, and set it up as a new phone, did the O/S updates, then the app updates (go into the store and pause any that are queued before you do the O/S updates).

So far, so good. Speech to text is there, but I will have to admit it is a bit slower than WP8.1. But it's usable.
 
Apr 8, 2016
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For those who haven't retried yet, the language pack download bug (the one that made language pack instalation impossible) has been fixed as of build 10586.494

Text-to-speech has no yet ben added to Windows 10, though. That's too bad. I loved it in Windows Phone 8.1
 

PGrey

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For those who haven't retried yet, the language pack download bug (the one that made language pack instalation impossible) has been fixed as of build 10586.494

Text-to-speech has no yet ben added to Windows 10, though. That's too bad. I loved it in Windows Phone 8.1

So mine works nearly flawlessly, in RS1, build 14393.5. I had it working on .494 as well, although it's definitely been refined, in Redstone.

I just sent my mom a text, edited it, and then added another sentence, and it all "just worked' (okay it got "for" instead of forward, but we're talking one word in 3 full sentences here).
It even told me about the "type" of smiley-face she'd put at the end of the message, I think it was "smiley-face-with-a-wink" or similar.

I had another back-forth with her too, about the warm weather, how our daughter was doing, etc. It worked fine, all but one time, when it missed my request to "reply", but then I was able to restart the conversation with my BT headset button, no problem.

Maybe try grabbing the RS build, via Fast Ring, and see if you get more consistent results? You can do it like I did, grab the build, and then drop back to Release Preview, which ensure you won't get RS2 builds, by "mistake".

-pete
 
Apr 8, 2016
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Just in case the option is there but I'm too stupid to find it, can you tell me where the option to read texts aloud is located? I couldn't find it in the production build (10586.494) but then again maybe I'm missing something.
 

PGrey

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I'm on RS1 now, but I'm pretty sure it was the same place, Settings->Time&Language->Speech, choose the setting to have it read to you.

Let me know if this works on Threshold, too, now I'm particularly curious. I know it has read messages to me in the car, and I've replied, on Threshold, but I also seem to remember builds where it "just didn't work too".
I'm almost positive it worked last week though, on 494.

I have the basic US->English settings though, for that side of things, could be a factor...
 
Apr 8, 2016
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Cortana is not available here yet, so all Cortana settings are disabled.

Back when the phone was running WP 8.1, text-to-speech was working flawlessly and it wasn't Cortana-dependent. If it needs COrtana to work on Windows 10, that's a shame. Cortana is not available in Argentina and Microsoft doesn't seem to have a public roadmap on Cortana availability.
 

Maurizio Troso

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Cortana is not available here yet, so all Cortana settings are disabled.

Back when the phone was running WP 8.1, text-to-speech was working flawlessly and it wasn't Cortana-dependent. If it needs COrtana to work on Windows 10, that's a shame. Cortana is not available in Argentina and Microsoft doesn't seem to have a public roadmap on Cortana availability.

Select Spanish language without Argentina variant. Cortana is fully server-centric, that's only way to compete to others voice assistance (Siri, Google)
 
Apr 8, 2016
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Changing only the language doesn't help. I had to change the region.

I knew changing the country from Argentina to Spain would work but I tried to avoid that for months due to the inconveniences it would cause. All reports pointed to store problems. So, I decided to give it a try and ignore any store problems.I don't use the store that much anyway.

So last night I changed the region to Spain, and Cortana worked fine. I couldn't test text-to-speech for SMS since I made the switch just minutes before going to sleep very late. I asked Contara to set up an alarm and that worked fine.

The alarm woke me up this morning and I decided to call my boyfriend, and that's when the problem started. A recorded voice from my mobile operator told me that I didn't have enough credit to make the call. That was impossible since I can call my man (and any other phone from the same mobile operator in my country) for free according to my mobile plan.

So I did a little research and it turned out that changing the region makes the phone or the mobile company believe that I'm calling from Spain. I've realized that when I noticed a message on screen saying that international dialing assistance was enabled. Would disabling the international dialing assistance make any difference?

So, nope. Switching region/language is not a solution. It made Cortana work but it made phone calls impossible.
 
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Apr 8, 2016
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Update: I disabled International dialing assistance and now everything works fine. I can enable Cortana and my calls are not treated as international calls.

Still, I miss the days when a male voice used to read text messages to me.
 

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