Speech recognition doesn't work

Hi. I used to use my iBook's Speech recognition software all the time, but can't seem to get my Macbook's to work. Any thoughts?
I am familiar with it and have got it to work in the past on my old laptops. I also use Text to Speech - I'm not sure why this doesn't work.

Without knowing the specifics of your problem it's hard to really suggest anything. Have you adjusted your settings correctly in System Preferences/Speech, and while in Finder have you clicked on 'Help' in the top menu? If you enter 'Speech Recognition' in the Help searchbox it will provide you with a lot of different trouble shooting tasks/hints.

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Tip: Speakable Items GONE? Recognition Doesn't Work?

If the Speakable Items folder is empty
"/Macintosh HD/Users/[username]/Libary/Speech/Speakable Items" you can restore the items by adding an new user account with admin rights.
Before loggin in to the newly added user check the Speakable Items directory once again if the files already showed up(this occured on my mac) if so you can remove the created user before even logging in, if not you must log in and go to the "/Macintosh HD/Users/[username]/Libary/Speech/Speakable Items" and copy the files to your main user account witch doesen't have the files.
Recognition doesen't work after the restoration of the files?
Uncheck the Addressbook Command Set or uncheck all the (null) items under the Addressbook configuration.
Hope it helped, it worked for me :P
Have fun talking to your MAC!!

Here is more detailed help , It helped others too .....
I had the same problem but I fixed it and I think I know how .
Go to home then library find the folder Speech , if it is not there , you log out and create anew test user .
From there go to the home folder , then library , then speech folder , make a copy then put it in the Shared file folder .
Log out and log into your normal user and go to the Shared folder get the Speech folder out and drop it into the Home library folder . Now you have the commands .
It still may not work , next open Speech in System Preferences click on the mic , Speech window opens , click commands ,open speakable items to make sure they are there , then uncheck all of the command sets .
Specially the address book one which I believe it to be the cause of this bug .
Start by only checking the app switching command (example: switch to Safari)
Turn on the speakable items and presto the commands should appear .
It is possible that if your address book is messed up , like info not in the proper fields somehow it affects these commands . But as long as I do not have them all checked it worked again for me .
The tech guy gave me another option which did not seem prudent , like reinstall the OS .
Luckily , thanks to the user friendly design of these machines and the OS which helps make it easier to fix problems , after a week of trying to figure it out , I think I did , at least for me .
Please let me know if this helps anyone and pass it along if it does .
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Speech Recognition Dictation Stopped Working In Most Applications

In the past I have dictated into the text boxes of many different programs on several computers, but now dictation appears to work only in some programs such as Notepad and Internet Explorer on one of them. Yet for me it is more important that it work
in Windows Live Mail and Miranda IM. EDIT: Attempts to dictate in these programs now produces only "What was that?". Exiting and restarting WSR and WSR Macros does not help.
Simulating keystrokes with the press command and WSR Macros continue to work as expected.

Hi,
According to your description, this problem probably caused by Microphone, it would be better to reinstall its driver for test to fix the problem.
Please check Microphone properties and restore its settings for test.
In addition, Speech Recognition also has multiple settings to improve itself performance, please check if these settings helpful with your problem.
Roger Lu
TechNet Community Support

Speech Recognition doesn't understand my accent

I am trying to use speech recognition on my macbook pro, however it doesn't understand my accent when I say commands. Is there any way to "teach" the mac to understand my pronunciation?

sircounttiger,
WHADSA madda wid da way Noo Yawkers tawk?
Accents are not supposed to make a difference, but try the techniques mentioned in some of these Knowledge Base Articles.
;~)

Speech Analysis doesn't work on MPEG clips...?

A few months ago, I was able to analyse my MPEG clips, now for some reason, it doesn't work. Out of curiosity, I made a quick video in Photo Booth and that worked fine. I then converted an MPEG to an MOV and that worked fine too.
I realize I sort of found the solution to my own problem but there has to be a way to make MPEG clips work. Right? Three months ago, it worked fine. What changed?

Yes, you are right, MPEG-4 is far better than MJPEG...Ideally MPEG-4 should work on your Camera, kindly state what made you think it does not work(kindly explain) ?
Set the MPEG-4 Settings (Resolution) to 640x480, 30fps max and see if it works(it should work)...
Here are the advantages of MPEG-4 -
Key Advantages of MPEG-4 :
-- Reduces the amount of storage needed
-- Increases the amount of time video can be stored
-- Reduces the network bandwidth used by the surveillance system
Examples of MPEG-4 applications :
-- An example of a situation where MPEG-4 could be utilized to solve a bandwidth issue is if the video traffic was going be part of an existing 100Mbs network. The network would be saturated sooner if MJPEG cameras were put on it.
-- Another example of where MPEG-4 could be the solution is if the storage on the NVR was relatively small
and archiving could only be done once a day.
-- A third example of utilizing MPEG-4 benefits would be if the length of time desired to store archives was unusually long, or just too long, if MJPEG images were stored.

Speech Recognition doesn't pause iTunes

I posted this in the Macbook forum, but people suggested I re-post here to see if anyone has this figured out -
I'm having a problem using Speech Recognition when iTunes is playing. The music interferes with my voice commands and I have to try several times before they are recognized.
According to the built in Help documentation on my Macbook, "You may prefer to use a listening key if you are in a noisy environment, or for greater control over when your speech is interpreted as a command by your computer. If iTunes is playing, iTunes will pause playing when you press the listening key."
I've tried that, but the listening key does not pause iTunes. Is the documentation wrong, or is my mac behaving badly? Any ideas on how to fix the issue?
I'm running iTunes v. 7.0.2
Thanks
Macbook 2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 1GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Yes, I am using the Macbook's internal speakers. That's really where the problem lies, the speakers are so close to the microphone that SR has a hard time picking out my voice. Having iTunes pause or mute as the manual says would solve the problem.

People Recognition Doesn't work in 11

My people recognition tells me there are no people or the people are labeled, even though that is incorrect.

Same issue. Renamed certain catalog files. repair and optimize, all to no avail.

Speech recognition

The speech recognition doesn't work for me I do have a microphone on my computer because at first it worked but now it doesn't. I can't find the calliberation window could u help

Go to the Blue Apple
Select System Preferences
Select Speech
Select correct microphone
Select Calibrate.

Speech Recognition (Dragon) and RoboHelp HTML

Hello RHelpers,
I primarily author inside of RoboHelp HTML. I was thinking of getting 'Dragon Naturally Speaking 10' to cut down on hand/wrist strain, but wanted to see if anyone else has used it with RH and what your experiences were. Does it work within this environment? I ask because Vista's run-of-the-mill speech recognition doesn't work too well there but does tolerably well inside of Word / Wordpad. Any feedback is appreciated.
Jared
* Vista 32 bit, SP2
* Latest RH7
* CHM Output

The best place to find a speech recognition rated answer is the KnowBrainer Speech Recognition Forum. http://www.knowbrainer.com/PubForum/

Speech function no longer works

I have just upgraded to Mtn Lion from Leopard and my text to speech function doesn't work - Why not? How can I fix it?

Go to: Apple > System Preferences > Dictation & Speech > Test to Speech and make sure that the box for "Speak selected text..." is checked and that the proper Shift+Control+Space keys are set.
If the box is already checked, uncheck and then recheck it to reset the saved preference.

Speech recognition feedback window won't disappear

There is an article on how to get the speech recognition to appear when it wont. But nothing for when turning off speakable items in preferences doest make that annoying little feedback window go away. Any ideas?
OS Lion 10.7.4

I just deleted the .speech.recognition..plist files, and they were automatically recreated by the system. After a restart I turned off then on the speech recognition and everything worked perfectly!

When i use speech recognition to open an app it gets stuck

What gives? I can use speech recognition for everything on my Mac but when I open an app such as firefox, speech recognition won't work any more and under the commands window it still stays "opening firefox" and nothing fixes it unless you restart it.

I did that many times, I mean I do it everytime. But it doesnt seem to help. It is strange sometimes the phone is slow and stucks for a many seconds, sometimes it is just one or two seconds. Thank you for your help though, but is there something else that you could think of?

Speech Recognition stops working after a minute of nonuse

I'm a grad student trying to keep from exacerbating my carpal tunnel and just figured out how to use the voice commands on my macbook. So far, they work great, they hear my voice, it does what I tell it to do, and I'm not constantly hitting apple+tab and apple+c and apple+v and so on, which really helps my wrists!
BUT. If I go for more than a minute or two without using a voice command, it stops working. I can't pinpoint anything else that triggers it other than if I stop using it for a little bit while I'm reading a paper or something. The microphone is calibrated and working, the little black arrows and the blue and green bars flash on the widget like it hears me, but then it won't give me the sound that says the command was recognized and it doesn't perform the command any time I try to use it again after a few minutes of not being used. It's like the recognition part goes to sleep and won't wake up.
If I go to the system preferences and toggle Speakable Itemst off and then on again, it starts working again until another minute or two of non-use. If I use spoken commands constantly, it will stay on for a good long while, but I'm not using it constantly that's the end of speech recognition. I really can't stop to just tell it some unneeded command to keep it awake all the time! Eventually, the computer gets confused if I turn the "speakable items" on and off too many times from the System Preferences, and it gets confused about whether or not it's turned on or off, or the widget disappears but the System Preferences panel thinks the Speakable Items is on.
I read somewhere that other people with a newer OS have a similar problem if they don't use the default speaking voice, so I switched to Alex and restarted, and the same thing is still happening.
I'm running 10.5.8, and using safari, word 2011, preview, nothing too crazy. My speech recognition is in "Listen only while key is pressed" mode, and like I said, works great until I stop using it for a minute or so. I'm using the internal microphone on my MacBook (dob circa 2008). Any tips on how I can actually keep my Speech Recognition useful? Thanks in advance!

OK, I have one more question now, seems to be the same as this question which was never answered years ago:
Speakable Commands>Application Switching -- how to delete items?
When I click on the triangle from the speech command widget and open speech commands, there is a TON of stuff there that I'll never ever use, but these things do not appear in the Library/Speech/Speakable Items folder so that I might be able to delete them. For example, one item I'd like to turn off is just the word "Home" and the computer keeps thinking that I said "Home" instead of whatever else I meant to say. Another keeps opening iChat or Mail, when I say "open new window" or something like that. I tried clicking, control clicking, option clicking, nothing will highlight a command in the Speech Commands window so that I might delete it.
The "Home" command only shows up when I'm using Word, in the "front window" list. However, the Application Speakable Items/Microsoft Word folder is empty. Is there some other way to get into the speakable commands list and weed out unwanted stuff?

Speech recognition not working properly!

I just started trying out the speech recognition tool in Snow Leopard and I seem to be having problems with it. When I calibrate it (using the internal mic) it works fine and understands those phrases perfectly but when I actually say the exact same thing outside of the calibration process the computer doesn't seem to understand. I know it's picking up my voice because the little widget thing animates as is does when it hears sound and the "Speakable Items" option is set to on . It actually worked once yesterday when I tried it for the first time, I told it to switch to an app and it did but that was the end of it.
What should I do? I haven't updated the software to 10.6.1, would this perhaps solve the issue? I don't know if it worked before I upgraded to Snow Leopard because this is the first time I've tried it out

Had the same problem. Could only resolve by going back to Snow Leopard.

Speech Recognition Not Working. Why?

I have a 6-month old Macbook (OSX 10.5.5), and I want to try out the built in speech recognition software. For some reason, it won't accept any input, no matter the configuration I put it in. When I click calibrate, it's slow to open, and no matter what I do with the slider, it won't recognize my commands. I've tried it in a new account, but without success. It appears to be system-wide. Also, there are no items in the speakable items folder, and a feedback box does not appear on the desktop. Any ideas?

Im assuming you've used the Sound pane to check that the built-in mic is working, and that you've remembered to click on the "Speakable Items" radio button.
There are a couple of fixes that normally work when changing user helps, but it is possible that two user accounts have the same problems!
1)
Have you got any items in Address Book that are marked as "Company" but have no company name in them? This is an old problem that was supposed to have been fixed with Leopard, but I've heard people complaining about it occasionally since. If there are, try going through them and putting in the company names, then log out and back in again.
2)
Try deleting the preference files
com.apple.speech.recognition.recognizer.prefs.plist
com.apple.speech.recognition.AppleSpeechRecognition.prefs.plist
com.apple.speech.recognition.feedback.prefs.plist
all in ~/Library/Preferences/
Failing those, and the missing Speakable Items suggests that's not the fault, try downloading and reapplying the latest Combo updater.
If that doesn't do the trick, you may have to reinstall the OS.
Sorry!
Archie

Speech recognition doesn't work

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