Text to Speech not working as expected

Question

I have followed several tutorials, but I am experiencing the same problem. First, here is my simple code:

import java.util.Locale;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.content.pm.ActivityInfo;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech.OnInitListener;
import android.util.Log;

public class AchievementsActivity extends Activity implements OnInitListener {

    TextToSpeech reader;
    Locale canada;
    boolean readerInit = false;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setRequestedOrientation (ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT);


        canada = Locale.ENGLISH;
        reader = new TextToSpeech(this, this);

        //speak();

        //      while (reader.isSpeaking()) {} //waiting for reader to finish speaking

    }

    @Override
    public void onStart()   {
        super.onStart();
        //speak();

    }

    @Override
    public void onInit(int status) {

        if (status == TextToSpeech.SUCCESS) {
            reader.setLanguage(canada);
            reader.setPitch(0.9f);
            Log.e("Init", "Success");
            readerInit = true;
            speak();
        }

        else
            System.out.println("Something went wrong.");
    }

    public void speak() {
        reader.speak("You currently have no achievements.", TextToSpeech.QUEUE_FLUSH, null);
    }
}

Now, notice the first speak in onCreate() which I have commented out, and the second in onStart() which I have also commented out. The reason for this is obvious based on what I receive in LogCat. For some reason, they are called before the initialization of the reader is complete. So the only way I have this working right is by placing the speak() function immediately after the initialization is sure to complete inside its own method.

So I was wondering if there is any way to wait for the initialization to complete, and then run speak() in onCreate or onStart().

Answer 1

You can do something like this:

@Override
public void onInit(int status) {

    if (status == TextToSpeech.SUCCESS) {
        reader.setLanguage(canada);
        reader.setPitch(0.9f);
        Log.e("Init", "Success");
        readerInit = true;

        // wait a little for the initialization to complete
        Handler h = new Handler();
        h.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                // run your code here
                speak();
            }
        }, 400);

    }

    else {
        System.out.println("Something went wrong.");
    }

}

It's not very nice, but it works. I hope somebody will find a better solution...

Answer 2

please take a look to this tutorial.
Basically, it forces the init during the onCreate() method.

// Fire off an intent to check if a TTS engine is installed
Intent checkIntent = new Intent();
checkIntent.setAction(TextToSpeech.Engine.ACTION_CHECK_TTS_DATA);
startActivityForResult(checkIntent, MY_DATA_CHECK_CODE);

Then, you will be able to speech any text you want at the start (with out any interaction from the user). And of course, speak will work.

HTH!
Milton

Answer 3

Try to use another constructor for the TextToSpeech class that using the given TTS engine:

TextToSpeech(this,this,"com.google.android.tts");

Instead of:

new TextToSpeech(this, this);