mic not "recording"

[derelict]

Thanks to the input of jitterjames i was able to use my eye toy camera as a microphone for voxcommando with very good results compared to my cheap desktop microphone.

however... i don't seem to have that major "camera usb disconnection" problem as reported by jitterjames.... my problem is different: all of a sudden... voxcommando can't hear anything... the microphone is still working if i look at the soundmeter in windows 7 controlpanel -> sounddevices -> eye camera.

When i restart voxcommando using the restart button... everything is working again! any hints on what's going on ?

Thanks

Marcel

[jitterjames]

if you lose connection momentarily, Vox will loose the connection permanently.

However, you don't need to restart VC, you can switch to off mode (red) and then back to on (green).

I am looking into trying to detect the disconnect and reinitialize automatically.

Just for the record. This is Microsoft's fault, not mine!

[derelict]

hehe... i never said that that was your fault  

so this is a known "issue" ? it happens after every 10 minutes or so ?!

Marcel

[jitterjames]

so this is a known "issue" ? it happens after every 10 minutes or so ?!

yes and no.  It varies from system to system.  With my regular mic in inputs it never happens.  With ps3eye it only happens when my mic goes dead which is every few days, with my logitech chat usb mic it never happens on my htpc and happens quite frequently on my laptop.

On thing you can try is to use a different usb port.  Especially try using one on the back of your machine rather than one on the front if you haven't already tried that.

[derelict]

no i haven't tried that yet... i'll give it a shot asap.

will the workarround for that microsoft problem find its way into the next release? just in case changing ports doesn't solve it ;-)

keep up the awesome work!!!!

marcel

[jitterjames]

I'm working on it now, but I'm having trouble coming up with a satisfactory solution.  In the mean time if you are using EventGhost anyway you can try setting up a timer that swtiches vox off and then off again every couple of minutes...

Is there any chance that it happens on a regular internal?  I wonder what would cause that...

[derelict]

i've had the camera connected to an usb hub before (my notebook has only 3 usb ports :-( ).... anyway... i've plugged the cam into a "dedicated" onboard usb port now and so far it seems to be better.... i'll recheck this evening if the problem persists and if so... if its on a regular interval!

would you like me to give it another try on the usb hub to see if it happens at a regular interval there ?

Marcel

[jitterjames]

I'm not too concerned with the interval issue if you are connected to a hub.  That would appear to be the source of the problem, but any information you can provide after further testing with the direct connection to your laptop usb port would be good.

Hopefully the problem will go away completely.

I will still try to come up with an auto reset solution.  If I put something together, it would then be great if you could test it with the usb hub to see if it helps.

[derelict]

Hi James

Just came back from work and the computer was not recognizing my trigger word. turned vox off and back on to standby mode and everything was working as expected.

So the problem persists even with the "direct" connection.... but i do have the feeling that its better but not completely solved now.

i'll try to figure out a common interval...... although its quite hard to track.... as i'm not going to speek to the pc in a one minute interval ;-)

anything else i can be of help for you ?

marcel

[jitterjames]

was your computer on all day?  It didn't go to sleep?  This would interrupt the connection for sure.

If you could just give me an idea if it is a matter of minutes 1/2 hour, hour etc...

[derelict]

the cam is connected to my eventghost pc... which is on 24/7 with no sleep :-)

up until now i have logged the following times where the mic stopped working:

7:28 PM
7:33 PM
7:36 PM
7:45 PM
7:55 PM

marcel

[jitterjames]

so connecting directly actually made no difference?  Or are those times from when it is connected to the hub?

[derelict]

this is all directly attached.

i was running a webcam motion detection software using that cam simultaneously.... i'm now trying it WITHOUT that software running. (anyone knows a good webcam motion detection software with pan and tilt funtion ?  )

marcel

[derelict]

update: it still happens even with no other application running accessing the cam

[jitterjames]

OK.  First of all, this will sound like an annoying request, but try another port.  I know they are probably all the same, but humor me.

Also, I'm not sure this is the best solution, but give it a whirl and let me know.  See the attached zip for a test .exe

Every 20 seconds, it checks to see how long since there was a mic event.  Usually they are every couple of seconds, though I'm not really sure why... Microsoft doesn't really document this stuff.  Anyway if it has been more than 5 seconds since the last update it should try to do a reset, similar to switching off and on.

This will probably not work well with an idle timeout if you are using that.