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I've got some problems with the recognition of my audio devices (see here for more detail). One suggested fix that floats around the internet is to disable the speech-dispatcher, by changing the following line in the configuration file /etc/default/speech-dispatcher

RUN=yes

to

RUN=no

However, the file /etc/default/speech-dispatcher does not exist on my Ubuntu 20.04. I tried creating it with the proposed line, but I didn't recognize any different behaviour, I was able to use the speech dispatcher with spd-say.

How do I check if adding the configuration file with RUN=no has any effect? And if it does not work this way in Ubuntu 20.04, how can I disable the autostart of speech-dispatcher?

Any help would be appreciated :)

red_trumpet
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  • It is most unlikely that `speech-dispatcher` will prevent your audio devices from being recognized. I would suggest you try [this](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1165625/ubuntu-18-04-audio-doesnt-work-unless-i-switch-between-outputs/1165640#1165640) first. If that doesn't solve it, please add more details to your question about the problem with your audio. – Raffa Mar 29 '21 at 21:02

4 Answers4

3

Have you tried to uncomment the DisableAutoSpawn line in the file /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf, thus the server will not start automatically on requests from the clients ?

It looks like the speech-dispatcher service is not a system service started systematically like other SysV/systemd service, but launched on demand with your UID.

Stéphane Fillod
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after many different fixes some that messed up audio after suspend i found that it was firefox calling it i disabled speech-dispatcher in " about:config " and no more problem the #1 answer will work but i think its better to stop it at the source

Jeff Larson
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Speech Dispatcher will be idle usually.

Disabling the Accessibility - Screen Reader would stop Firefox (or any other) calling the Speech Dispatcher.

Natarajan N Napoleon
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Background

There are a few answers floating around on how to disable speech dispatcher. I tried a few without success. Since I was in the process of writing a music player and constantly seeing speech-dispatcher as a sound source during testing it was annoying.

Below is a bash solution using the console and a python solution using a GUI.

From the Console

Enter these commands in the console after the $ prompt. The # hashtag comments are not entered.

$ uptime
 17:37:18 up 18 min,  1 user,  load average: 1.63, 1.67, 1.41

    # Had rebooted three times: soft, warm and cold.
    # The unwanted jobs didn't appear until 18 minutes after
    # cold boot.

$ ps aux | grep speech
rick      8919  0.0  0.0 289032  5000 ?        Sl   17:33   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_dummy /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/dummy.conf
rick      8922  0.0  0.0 326656  7468 ?        Sl   17:33   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_espeak /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/espeak.conf
rick      8927  0.0  0.0 289044  5028 ?        Sl   17:33   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_generic /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/generic.conf
rick      8930  0.0  0.0 289032  5032 ?        Sl   17:33   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_cicero /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/cicero.conf
rick      8934  0.0  0.0  98768  2380 ?        Ssl  17:33   0:00 /usr/bin/speech-dispatcher --spawn --communication-method unix_socket --socket-path /run/user/1000/speech-dispatcher/speechd.sock
rick     17823  0.0  0.0  15776   928 pts/22   S+   17:37   0:00 grep --color=auto speech

    # Above are four unwanted sound sinks and controller

$ pgrep -f speech-dispatcher/modules
8919
8922
8927
8930

    # pgrep shows just the unwanted sound sinks' PID

$ pkill -f speech-dispatcher/modules

    # pkill nukes the unwanted sound sinks by PID

$ ps aux | grep speech
rick      8934  0.0  0.0  98768  2380 ?        Ssl  17:33   0:00 /usr/bin/speech-dispatcher --spawn --communication-method unix_socket --socket-path /run/user/1000/speech-dispatcher/speechd.sock
rick     26836  0.0  0.0  15776   996 pts/22   S+   17:41   0:00 grep --color=auto speech

    # Running ps again shows success

You can put two commands above into a bash script:

pgrep -f speech-dispatcher/modules
pkill -f speech-dispatcher/modules

The two line bash script that will delete the sound sinks for you.

Over-killing the PID Killing

The current project is a music player in Python so why not have it check when the speech-dispatcher gremlins show up? Then it displays a message:

check speech dispatcher message.png

Here's the python code to serve as a guide:

def check_speech_dispatcher(self):
    """ Four annoying speech dispatchers appear in Ubuntu """
    if not DELETE_SPEECH:
        return  # Already done or don't want to kill pids

    found_pids = list()
    for Sink in pav.sinks_now:
        if Sink.name == "speech-dispatcher":
            found_pids.append(Sink.pid)

    if len(found_pids) == 0:
        return

    global DELETE_SPEECH
    DELETE_SPEECH = False  # Don't show message again this session

    title = "Speech Dispatcher Jobs Discovered."
    text = str(len(found_pids)) + " instance(s) of Speech"
    text += "Dispatcher have been found.\n\n"
    text += "Do you want to cancel the job(s)?\n"  # centered: \t breaks
    answer = message.AskQuestion(self.play_top, title, text, 'no',
                                 thread=self.get_refresh_thread())
    text += "\n\t\tAnswer was: " + answer.result
    self.info.cast(title + "\n\n" + text)

    if answer.result != 'yes':
        return  # Don't delete pids
    for pid in found_pids:
        ext.kill_pid_running(pid)

Near the bottom is info.cast() function. It zooms down a broadcast message. It's kind of like print() command for a GUI application:

check speech dispatcher info.cast()

WinEunuuchs2Unix
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