If you have difficulty using Microsoft Agent with text-to-speech engines, refer to the following list of symptoms and try the suggested steps to isolate and solve the problem.

• When the character is supposed to speak, I see the word balloon and its lips move but I don't hear any speech.
• When the character is supposed to speak, I see the word balloon but its lips don't move and I don't hear any speech.
• I get the following message: An outgoing call cannot be made since the application is dispatching an input-synchronous call.
• The character’s mouth moves quickly and then stops before the audio output is complete.

• I installed the speech engines from the Microsoft Agent Web site on my computer running Microsoft Windows XP but the characters don't seem to work with them.
• The speech engines used to work with Microsoft Agent until I upgraded to Windows XP. Now I just see a word balloon but they don't speak or move their lips.

• I installed an application that I found on the Internet. It makes a Microsoft Agent character read my e-mail messages to me and it works fine in English. When I get messages written in German (or French or Japanese or other language), the text-to-speech doesn't change from English and the resulting output sounds horrible. Can I install the German (or French or Japanese or other language) text-to-speech engine from the Microsoft Agent Web site so the character will be able to read my German (or French or Japanese or other language) messages correctly? Or do I need to install the Speech Control Panel applet for SAPI 4 from there and then set the Microsoft Agent characters to use the German (or French or Japanese or other language) text-to-speech engine?
• I installed the TTS3000 text-to-speech engines onto my computer that runs Windows XP (or Windows 2000) and correctly edited my programming accordingly for their use. The Microsoft Agent characters speak audibly using these TTS3000 text-to-speech engines when I or other local Administrators are logged in but not when other users without Administrator privileges are logged into this computer. On Windows 98 and Windows Me, these TTS3000 text-to-speech engines work correctly for both sets of users. How can I fix this?
• I followed the procedure described as a solution to the problem stated in the previous question. This worked fine so that the Microsoft Agent characters could speak audibly using these TTS3000 text-to-speech engines when users without Administrator privileges were logged into the Windows XP (or Windows 2000) computer. Now, months later, these same TTS3000 text-to-speech engines have stopped working again. What happened?

Check that your speakers are plugged in, the audio isn't muted and the volume level controls are not set too low. Depending upon the audio device(s) that you have installed, there could be more than one volume level control that can effect how much or how little you hear. Verify that other applications like the Windows Media Player can play .wav, .mp3 or other audio files. If these play audio correctly, try the troubleshooting suggestions for the next problem, below.

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This symptom could have several causes. Try the following to isolate the problem:

• Verify that your your sound card is compatible with the Microsoft Windows operating system that you are using. Test the sound card with other applications that produce audio output like the Windows Media Player (play a .wav, .mp3 or other audio file) to confirm that playback is generally working properly.
• Verify that no other application currently running is using the audio output device.
• Verify that your Microsoft Agent settings are enabled for spoken output using the following procedure:
• Browse the Try out Microsoft Agent sample Web page. When the character appears, right-click it and then click Advanced Character Options from the shortcut menu.
• In the Advanced Character Options dialog box, click the Output tab.
• Select the Play spoken audio check box and click OK.
• If you are using a character other than Genie, Merlin, Peedy or Robby, check with the developer of the character or application that the character was created correctly configured for spoken output.
• If the application or Web page is programmed to use a text-to-speech (TTS) engine to produce spoken output, verify that you have correctly installed a compatible SAPI 4.0 TTS engine (SAPI is an acronym for the Speech API defined by Microsoft). Note that while Microsoft Windows XP, Office XP and other applications may have already installed working text-to-speech engines on your computer, those particular engines may not be compatible with the SAPI 4.0 specification and thus, unusable with Microsoft Agent characters. Text-to-speech engines that are compatible with (and licensed only for use with) Microsoft Agent are available for installation from the Microsoft Agent Downloads page.
• If you are using the Microsoft Windows XP operating system, you will also need the SAPI 4.0 runtime support to be installed. See the next problem and solution for more information.
• Verify that no other application currently running is using MIDI and possibly blocking the audio channel. Then verify that Microsoft Agent's use of MIDI also isn't blocking the audio channel by disabling it.

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This message may occur under the following circumstances:

• When a Web page including Microsoft Agent is closed (by right clicking the page's taskbar entry and choosing Close from the pop-up menu), this may occur. This is due to a timing problem between Agent and the browser when they are shutting down at the same time. The error is harmless. Click OK to dismiss the message.
• When a Microsoft Agent-enabled application or Web page attempts to request a specific text-to-speech (TTS) engine without Speechapi.dll installed. Try installing the SAPI 4.0 runtime support from the Downloads page.

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Make sure you have the latest drivers for your sound card installed. Customers have reported seeing this problem when using the Creative Labs SB Live sound card. Creative Labs has released a fix for this problem in their Live!Ware 2.0 software, and you can find get the latest version of Live!Ware at their Web site.

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Microsoft Agent uses SAPI 4.0 to provide speech services. Windows XP however now ships with SAPI 5.0 which does not provide backward compatibility support for its predecessor. Fortunately, SAPI 4.0 and SAPI 5.0 can co-exist together on the same Windows XP computer.

In order for the speech engines to work with Microsoft Agent in Windows XP, the SAPI 4.0 runtime support is also required to be installed already.

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See the previous problem and solution. The upgrade process of Windows XP may have removed the SAPI 4.0 support already existing on the computer. Just re-install the SAPI 4.0 runtime and SAPI 4.0 speech engines again after the upgrade to Windows XP.

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Multi-lingual text-to-speech engines

I installed an application that I found on the Internet. It makes a Microsoft Agent character read my e-mail messages to me and it works fine in English. When I get messages written in German (or French or Japanese or other language), the text-to-speech doesn't change from English and the resulting output sounds horrible. Can I install the German (or French or Japanese or other language) text-to-speech engine from the Microsoft Agent Web site so the character will be able to read my German (or French or Japanese or other language) messages correctly? Or do I need to install the Speech Control Panel applet for SAPI 4 from there and then set the Microsoft Agent characters to use the German (or French or Japanese or other language) text-to-speech engine?

The SAPI (Speech Application Programming Interfaces) 4 speech services in the Windows operating systems don't work this way. There is no built-in ability to auto-detect the language of a piece of text and then route it to a text-to-speech engine of that corresponding language. Similarly, the Speech Control Panel applet for SAPI 4 does not provide a global language override that allows the end-user to set all running SAPI 4 applications to use German (or French or Japanese or other language) text-to-speech engines.

Instead, each separate SAPI 4 (and Microsoft Agent) application optionally allows the setting of the language for its own text-to-speech output. Developers may (or may not) provide functionality within their application(s) for the end-user to select the language to be used (assuming multiple language engines are installed). Alternately, they may choose (for whatever reason) to support only a single language and not provide any end-user selection. Furthermore, if a Microsoft Agent application is written so that it does not specifically set any language for its text-to-speech functionality, the language of the text-to-speech engine used will default to the operating system language setting for the current user (assuming there is a text-to-speech engine in that language installed).

As the end-user of someone else's application, there may not be an option for you to select a particular language for text-to-speech output. If the application does provide a language selection feature but it still doesn't switch the text-to-speech output correctly to a language that you have an engine successfully installed, refer to the application's documentation or contact its developer. Also, you can check that both the SAPI 4 runtime and the corresponding language support library are installed on your computer.

It may also be helpful to review the other problems described on this page to see if their situations are also applicable for you. Notably, you can verify that an application that is known to set the language correctly to English is working correctly (with an English text-to-speech engine installed) and that you aren't being affected as a non-Administrator attempting to use a TTS3000 engine on Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

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You will need to configure the security permissions for some of the registry keys of the TTS3000 text-to-speech engines to enable their use by user accounts without Administrator privileges. This can be accomplished with the operating system's Registry Editor. A procedure is described for the Windows XP operating system. This same procedure for Windows 2000 is similar.

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I followed the procedure described as a solution to the problem stated in the previous question. This worked fine so that the Microsoft Agent characters could speak audibly using these TTS3000 text-to-speech engines when users without Administrator privileges were logged into the Windows XP (or Windows 2000) computer. Now, months later, these same TTS3000 text-to-speech engines have stopped working again. What happened?

When you followed the described procedure provided for the previous question, this provided the non-Administrator user accounts with Full Control permissions to the required registry keys. It is possible that one of these users, may have knowingly or unknowingly edited the values, changed the permissions again, or even deleted the registry key entirely. This is described in the Supplemental Notes.

Check if these registry keys and their permissions have been edited, deleted or otherwise changed since. If necessary, change these registry keys and their permissions back again, or re-install the TTS3000 text-to-speech and then follow the above procedure again.

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Troubleshooting problems installing Microsoft Agent
Troubleshooting problems loading Web pages
Troubleshooting problems using speech recognition engines
Troubleshooting other types of user problems

Troubleshooting introductory page

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