voice recognition function stopped working - Motorola Q Forum

jan001 · 07-02-2008, 04:34 PM

Up until day before yesterday, the voice recognition function on my Q9c worked great and I used it a lot, usually while driving, and always by just holding down the speakerphone button for a couple of seconds to hear "Say a Command", which how it's always worked.

Then yesterday afternoon, I tried to use it and never got the spoken prompt, "Say a command." The banner at the top of the screen displayed "Voice Recognition". I got a screen with "say a command" at the top, a tiny flashing green image that might be an ear off to the right of that (NO idea), and what appear to be choices of the kinds of things I could do beneath that, but I couldn't navigate to them, and even if I could have, that wouldn't help while driving, when the whole point of voice recognition is to be able to use the phone without looking at it.

What I've tried and what happened:

I tried one time saying a command when I saw that screen prompt, but nothing happened.
Another time I tried saying a command upon seeing the screen prompt, and it displayed a message that told me to wait for the beep before saying my command, but there was no beep.
The sensitivity setting inside Voice Recognition is in the middle and says "Recommended".
I've tried using the thumbwheel up and down to see if the volume's just way down, and also tried the left and right sides of the navigation button to see if that might affect the volume. Nothing.
I've rebooted the phone several times - no difference.
I turned the phone off, took the battery out for a bit and then returned it - no change.
I've looked in the online Help - no help, that I recognized.
I've looked at the Settings (both on the phone and within Voice Recognition) but don't see anything obvious like, "turn voice prompts on/off" or anything like that.
I've tried using it by selecting Voice Recognition from the Start button, but it's the same problem.

The only other strange thing, audio-wise, that I've noticed is that, upon reboot, I don't get the little sparkle noise when the Sprint logo comes up. No clue whether that has anything do with it.

A couple of days ago, I did have SlingPlayer on and suddenly just lost its sound. Poof. The video kept playing but the sound stopped. But just rebooting the phone fixed that right away and it has stayed fixed, so I'm putting that down to a problem with that particular connection to Sling. I didn't try anything else before rebooting the phone, so didn't do anything there that would have caused this.

The phone's speakers work fine. I can use speakerphone fine, just by pressing the speakerphone button, the same one that, when held down a second or two longer, should (and always has up to now) launch voice recognition.

If it weren't for the fact that the speakers work, and the speakerphone function works, I'd suspect hardware or firmware. But since those are both fine, it has to be a setting somewhere. ...doesn't it? I can't figure it out. Help? Anybody? Haaaalp?

sherri · 07-02-2008, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jan001

Up until day before yesterday, the voice recognition function on my Q9c worked great and I used it a lot, usually while driving, and always by just holding down the speakerphone button for a couple of seconds to hear "Say a Command", which how it's always worked.

Then yesterday afternoon, I tried to use it and never got the spoken prompt, "Say a command." The banner at the top of the screen displayed "Voice Recognition". I got a screen with "say a command" at the top, a tiny flashing green image that might be an ear off to the right of that (NO idea), and what appear to be choices of the kinds of things I could do beneath that, but I couldn't navigate to them, and even if I could have, that wouldn't help while driving, when the whole point of voice recognition is to be able to use the phone without looking at it.

What I've tried and what happened:

I tried one time saying a command when I saw that screen prompt, but nothing happened.
Another time I tried saying a command upon seeing the screen prompt, and it displayed a message that told me to wait for the beep before saying my command, but there was no beep.
The sensitivity setting inside Voice Recognition is in the middle and says "Recommended".
I've tried using the thumbwheel up and down to see if the volume's just way down, and also tried the left and right sides of the navigation button to see if that might affect the volume. Nothing.
I've rebooted the phone several times - no difference.
I turned the phone off, took the battery out for a bit and then returned it - no change.
I've looked in the online Help - no help, that I recognized.
I've looked at the Settings (both on the phone and within Voice Recognition) but don't see anything obvious like, "turn voice prompts on/off" or anything like that.
I've tried using it by selecting Voice Recognition from the Start button, but it's the same problem.

The only other strange thing, audio-wise, that I've noticed is that, upon reboot, I don't get the little sparkle noise when the Sprint logo comes up. No clue whether that has anything do with it.

A couple of days ago, I did have SlingPlayer on and suddenly just lost its sound. Poof. The video kept playing but the sound stopped. But just rebooting the phone fixed that right away and it has stayed fixed, so I'm putting that down to a problem with that particular connection to Sling. I didn't try anything else before rebooting the phone, so didn't do anything there that would have caused this.

The phone's speakers work fine. I can use speakerphone fine, just by pressing the speakerphone button, the same one that, when held down a second or two longer, should (and always has up to now) launch voice recognition.

If it weren't for the fact that the speakers work, and the speakerphone function works, I'd suspect hardware or firmware. But since those are both fine, it has to be a setting somewhere. ...doesn't it? I can't figure it out. Help? Anybody? Haaaalp?

Did you check "profiles"? Could the phone be in a "headphone" type of profile? If so, you would hear: "say a command" from the headphone...Maybe worth checking...

jan001 · 07-03-2008, 05:53 PM

Just checked to be sure, and there's no profile like that. I checked the "Normal" profile which is the one I'm using and there's nothing I can edit in there that would address it. That was a good idea, though.

Oddly enough, I tried it yesterday morning on the way to work, thinking "nothing to lose", and it worked! ONCE. I haven't been able to get it to work again.

I'd suspect a problem with the contact beneath the button on the keypad except that it works every time I use it to turn speakerphone on or off. It just won't give me the voice prompt.

A new wrinkle: Now, if I hold down the button for a few seconds to TRY to launch voice recognition, it still doesn't give me a voice/audible prompt, but if I go ahead and say the number I want to dial, it displays the number it thinks I said, and it's right. Then I press OK and it dials it. ...but only sometimes. Other times it totally ignores me.

Still not good, but it shows that it's still in there somewhere. I just wish I knew how to get it back.

GAH.

sherri · 07-03-2008, 06:02 PM

The things I would try next is to use SKTools lite to clean everything up. (If you don't have this, it' on Rudeboy's app. page.) Then I would use the Free Up Ram (which installs w/ SKTools lite).

Lastly, I would push in on scroll wheel until volume pops up, & I would make sure it is all the way up.

I'm sure the Guru's and mods will weigh in shortly...