Kurzweil 1000 Hangs or Crashes when Changing Speech Engines

This article applies to:

• Kurzweil 1000

Symptoms

When changing the speech engine in the Reading Voice or System Voice settings dialog, Kurzweil 1000 hangs or crashes.

Cause

One possible cause is that the user is simply changing the speech engines too rapidly. Some speech engines take a little while to start up. If the user selects a speech engine, then deselects it before it has finished starting up, it might cause a hang or crash.

Another possible cause is that a speech engine is installed on the user's system, but is not working properly. When the user selects that speech engine in the settings dialog, Kurzweil 1000 hangs or crashes. The most common speech engine problems are a conflict between the ViaVoice Outloud and Eloquence speech engines, and the accidental installing of an SSIL driver.

Solution

The first thing to try is going through the list of speech engines slowly. After typing the up or down arrow to move from one speech engine to another, wait until that engine speaks before typing the arrow key again. It may be necessary to wait several seconds, but if the engine hasn't spoken within a minute, then the application has probably hanged, and the problem may be a speech engine that is not working properly.

If an application has installed the Eloquence speech engine, then a conflict between Eloquence and ViaVoice Outloud, which is installed with Kurzweil 1000, is likely. The screen reader Window-Eyes installs Eloquence, so systems with Window-Eyes can show this problem. The screen reader JAWS also installs Eloquence, but that version of Eloquence can not be used by applications other than JAWS. Therefore, it does not affect the Kurzweil 1000.

The easiest way to fix a conflict between Eloquence and ViaVoice Outloud is to remove ViaVoice and let the Kurzweil 1000 use Eloquence instead (Eloquence and ViaVoice are based on the same code and sound the same). To do this, run Windows Explorer and go to Kurzweil's Diagnostics directory (usually C:\Program Files\Kurzweil Educational Systems\Diags). Run the program SAPIReg. A dialog will appear with a list box showing the installed speech engines. Select the entry for ViaVoice Outloud, tab to the Remove button and click it. Next, tab to the Save button and click it. Finally, tab to the Exit button and click it. Reboot the computer, try running Kurzweil 1000, and see if the Reading Voice or System Voice settings can be changed.

If the crash still occurs, it is possible that an SSIL driver was accidentally installed. SSIL is a language for controlling hardware speech devices. If you do not have a hardware speech device, or if you do not want the Kurzweil 1000 to use SSIL to control it, you can ensure that no SSIL drivers are installed by running the No_SSIL program. This program only removes the SSIL drivers that Kurzweil 1000 uses. If you have other programs that use SSIL, they will not be affected. To run No_SSIL, first run Windows Explorer and go to Kurzweil's Diagnostics directory (usually C:\Program Files\Kurzweil Educational Systems\Diags). Run the program No_SSIL. A dialog box will appear asking if you are sure you want to remove your SSIL drivers. Click Yes.A new dialog will appear confirming that the SSIL drivers have been removed. Reboot the computer, try running Kurzweil 1000, and see if the Reading Voice or System Voice settings can be changed.

If the crash still occurs, please contact our technical support department.

History

Creation Date: January 17, 2003

Last Modified: January 17, 2003