[Dolfi]

When I upgraded to windows phone 8.1 on my Lumia 925 I couldn't wait to try out Cortana, but I was kind of disappointed as it wasn't working well, it came only with bing searches.
But I figured out a solution for this without doing a hard reset as many of you are suggesting.I read it somewhere as a suggestion not sure exactly where but it did work for me so I thought to share this with you, hopefully it will turn out positive for all of us.

1. Turn of Cortana by going to settings->Swipe left to application->Cortana and turn it off.
2. Restart your phone (will ask for it automatically)
3. Then do a bing voice search as usually (The old one).
4. Now navigate to Cortana again and turn it on.
(Open Cortana from her own app in the first)

It should work now, try to make some question like:
Tell me a joke?
Do you have a sister?
Are you pretty?

You also be sure to be connected to wifi because it gets confused with data connection.
If there is any other suggestion please let us know on comments, and also let us know if this helped.

[henkepalmquist]

Dude, dude it worked!
DUDE thats awesome!

[Guytronic]

Very helpful!
You may want to repost this in the Cortana tips and tricks also for more exposure.
Good work!

[armandojv]

Tell her to sing you a song. Lol

[BEECHBOY707]

Ahh thanks so much man! Finally it works - and I'm not even in the US - the UK!!! Cheers Dolfi :)

[a1rphones]

This is great.. Very useful tips..

[Dolfi]

Glad it worked guys, cheers

[jezve]

Thanks! It works great! Now I can get to know her. :D

[jasqid]

This sorta helped. Asked if she had a sister and she said nope just me. But when I aske for a joke she says TELL ME ME to send a text message.
And I thought if you asked say for the square root of 250 she would tell you, but I still get a bing search. Actually, still getting a bing search for a lot of things. She's been very disappointing and not living up to my expectations.

[khader_moham]

exactly, not as witty as siri :(

[TheJoester09]

This sorta helped. Asked if she had a sister and she said nope just me. But when I aske for a joke she says TELL ME ME to send a text message.
And I thought if you asked say for the square root of 250 she would tell you, but I still get a bing search. Actually, still getting a bing search for a lot of things. She's been very disappointing and not living up to my expectations.

You have to remember that the service is in beta right now, and the experience could change from day-to-day as MS tweaks things on their end. Give it some time—she'll get better!

[mickydale]

Has anyone actually got her to say their name??? She never says mine, and even though she has my home and work added she still doesn't recognize them when asked

[ven07]

Cortana worked fine for me, but I still did this :) She seems a bit more responsive now

[Dolfi]

@TheJoester09 is right you should give some time as it's in beta version, waiting for improvements in the next release.

[Durishin]

I've done this and a hard reset. She'll tell me a joke but not say my name. "What is my name" and "What will you call me" both trigger Bing searches.

[ven07]

I've done this and a hard reset. She'll tell me a joke but not say my name. "What is my name" and "What will you call me" both trigger Bing searches.

Some of us have that and some of us don't... Remember she's still in beta :)

[AdryJay]

Not working for me... The strange thing is that she works on my 1020 and not on my 930 and 630... -.-'