Getting Unable to start speech recognition engine error

[cgott42]

I installed the Voxcommando s/w, and set the directory to C:\VoxCommando
When I go to the C:\VoxCommando directory and run VoxCommandoSP.exe it runs fine, however when I run the VoxCommando.exe file it gives the following error:
What should I do, thanks for your help

[PegLegTV]

I'm not 100% sure but I would try a new install in different location, like a folder on your desktop and see if it works from there, if that doesn't work more information will help

for example:
what operating system?
what version of Voxcommando your trying to install?

[cgott42]

Thanks
I'm installing Vox v2.145
I am running Windows 7 on an 2nd Gen i3 Dell PC w/4GB of RAM

I tried reinstalling to:c\VoxCommando2 and selected Standard - Sapi5 and English/JRiver and got the same error
I tried again (reinstalling to:c\VoxCommando3) and selected English/Basic and still go the same
I went to options and saw that the "specific speech recognizer" is greyed out, doesn't allow me to select any.  However in SP it's fine

[PegLegTV]

Jitterjames will have to be the one to sort this out (the creator of Voxcommando) but for one more trouble shooting try can you access Microsoft text to speech (search: change text to speech settings) from your start menu and make sure its working properly, if not then you would need to figure out whats causing Microsoft text to speech to fail

[cgott42]

Thanks when I typed "Change Text to Speech Settings" in my Windows Start|Search box, a window popped up with "Anna" selected as the text to speech.  When I clicked on the Speech Recognition tab an error message popped up:
"The requested task cannot be carried out because the necessary engine could not be created.  Please select a different engine and/or different audio device"

When I click OK to that error message, the Speech Recognition tab shows up and has Microsoft Speech Recognizer 8.0 for Windows (English - US)  selected, and default speech profile selected

[jitterjames]

This error is related to speech recognizers, not Text to Speech (TTS).

I believe this is a problem with Windows that some people experience.  Probably a corrupt file or registry setting.

You will usually get this error if there is some kind of problem with your built-in Windows desktop speech recognition.  The operating system is reporting that there are no languages available for speech recognition.  This is actually normal and to be expected if you are using a non-English version of Windows but otherwise it indicates some kind of problem.  If you have Windows 7 Ultimate you can try installing some other language packs to see if it fixes it (another versions of English or even French, German etc.).  One method that will almost surely solve the problem is to reinstall Windows but obviously that is not much fun to do unless your system is very bare-bones in terms of what is already installed on it.

One thing you can do as a diagnostic is to try using Windows built-in speech recognition with US-English and or GB-English and see if that is working normally.

If you are not using an English version of Windows please let us know exactly what version of Windows 7 you are using and what language it is.

I think I have seen some fixes for this problem online but since I have never experienced this issue I have no firsthand experience of using them, and since it is a bit obscure it is hard to find.

[jitterjames]

When I clicked on the Speech Recognition tab an error message popped up:
"The requested task cannot be carried out because the necessary engine could not be created.  Please select a different engine and/or different audio device"

I missed this on my first read.  This indicates a clear problem with your Windows SR setup.  First make sure you have a working mic and do whatever you can to get Windows Speech recognition working.  After that is working VoxCommando will probably work too.