2017-01-06, 00:47
Hello, the kodi just crashed and now when I re-open it the screen reader doesn't re-open with it. Is their a reason for this, and how do I fix it?
2017-02-17, 06:26
hello, I just want to say a huge thanks first of all. I've been using this addon for quite a long time now. It's really cool that I can get access to such a powerful media centre. However, with the release of kodi 17 the addon is effectively nuked for newcomers. What I think is happening is the following:
kodi 17 launched with an option that you need to toggle to enable third party sources, this setting is off by default.
The kodi screen reader installer installs the addon and repo with no issue.
When you toggle unknown sources, the addon shows up as being installed but disabled.
when you enable the addon, it uses SAPI by default this causes the addon to completely crash the program.
At this point,, relaunching causes the addon to speak through sapi and immediatly crash again.
The solution to this problem is to download and install kodi 16 from:
http://mirrors.kodi.tv/releases/win32/ko...Jarvis.exe
Install kodi first, then run the kodi screen reader installer. Running the screenreader installer before the installation of kodi results in the installer getting stuck on a 404 error.
When you've done that, launch kodi and head over to and click on system, find AddOns, and click on that. If a dialog box pops up here, click ok and then find and click on my AddOns. Head down to services and click it. Find kodi screen reader in here, click it and find the configure option. Select configure and set the default TTS to your screen reader of choice by clicking the default tts engine option and selecting from the list that appears. Finally, go down to the OK button. You can now go ahead and install kodi 17 if you like, just make sure the installer is set to keep your user data. After the installer for version 17 finishes, you can launch the program and kodi will come up with the screen reader active.
kodi 17 launched with an option that you need to toggle to enable third party sources, this setting is off by default.
The kodi screen reader installer installs the addon and repo with no issue.
When you toggle unknown sources, the addon shows up as being installed but disabled.
when you enable the addon, it uses SAPI by default this causes the addon to completely crash the program.
At this point,, relaunching causes the addon to speak through sapi and immediatly crash again.
The solution to this problem is to download and install kodi 16 from:
http://mirrors.kodi.tv/releases/win32/ko...Jarvis.exe
Install kodi first, then run the kodi screen reader installer. Running the screenreader installer before the installation of kodi results in the installer getting stuck on a 404 error.
When you've done that, launch kodi and head over to and click on system, find AddOns, and click on that. If a dialog box pops up here, click ok and then find and click on my AddOns. Head down to services and click it. Find kodi screen reader in here, click it and find the configure option. Select configure and set the default TTS to your screen reader of choice by clicking the default tts engine option and selecting from the list that appears. Finally, go down to the OK button. You can now go ahead and install kodi 17 if you like, just make sure the installer is set to keep your user data. After the installer for version 17 finishes, you can launch the program and kodi will come up with the screen reader active.
2017-02-19, 08:53
hey Ruuk,
A friend of mine is trying to get kodi screenreader running on his mac. He's downloaded the latest version of the screenreader from the advanced link of your site, and pasted services.xbmc.tts into ~/library/Application Support/Kodi/addons and now has packages temp and your addon. He's running osx 10.12.3. Anything hhe could do try and fix this? It looks the same as on my windows computer, but he's not getting any speech when he opens up kodi. The only thing he doesn't have is all of the default addons like I do, only those two folders and your addon. Mine has a bunch of default addons that comes with Kodi.
A friend of mine is trying to get kodi screenreader running on his mac. He's downloaded the latest version of the screenreader from the advanced link of your site, and pasted services.xbmc.tts into ~/library/Application Support/Kodi/addons and now has packages temp and your addon. He's running osx 10.12.3. Anything hhe could do try and fix this? It looks the same as on my windows computer, but he's not getting any speech when he opens up kodi. The only thing he doesn't have is all of the default addons like I do, only those two folders and your addon. Mine has a bunch of default addons that comes with Kodi.
2017-02-19, 19:04
Two other things that I wanted to mention. Your github page is the first thing that I find when googling for kodi screenreader, however, the version in the releases link is 0.0.83 while the advanced link on your site is 1.0.6b2. Not sure if you wanna update your github page so that things match. I've also heard, but not tested, that the kodi screenreader installer that you put on your site is giving a 404 error when trying to run it. Does that need to be updated for kodi 17? Guessing that it's not possible as well to make a mac installer for Kodi with kodi screenreader ready to go like you did with the Windows one?
2017-02-24, 15:34
Hi all!
Yesterday I upgraded to LibreELEC 8.0. One thing I tried emediatly was, if the aplay player works again with the screen reader. In 7.0 it didn't. Only every second keypress from the remote was spoken. So if a butten was selected and I pressed the right key twice, only the second press was spoken. Well, it is a little bit more complicated but my english is not good enough to describe it better. Sorry! But the good news is, it works again like it did on OpenELEC 6 or my earlyer Ubuntu installations. :-) The Kodi UI sounds, Music and Video audio is going through HDMI to my AV-Receiver, while the screen reader output goes to a set of little speakers behind my TV set. :-) Now I have screen reader output during playback again! :-) Oh, I run LibreELEC on an Intel Nuc 5CPYH.
I like the new skin. I don't know exactly how it looks visually, but it feels like I have more items on one screen and can reach items with less key presses. The screen reader seams to work generally, but there are things here and there which are not spoken. The new icons on the OSDs, for exampel, the buttons for pause, stop, next and previous, also the icons for bookmarks and some settings are not recognized. Also in the left options menu, where you can change view modes, the setting itself is spoken but not the value. So I hear that I am on the control which changes the view, but I don't hear which view I actually selected.
The movie info screen also is less accessible. Again, I'm not sure how it looks visually, but I think I had more information availabel with the confluence skin. For example the area with the director, author, genre, year and so on is something I cannot find with the screen reader.
As I said, generally it works, and for now I will keep the new skin. But a little update to fix one or the other thing would be nice! :-)
Again, sorry for my english. It looks like I have to watch a lot mor movies and TV shows in english to improve it... :-)
Regards!
Yesterday I upgraded to LibreELEC 8.0. One thing I tried emediatly was, if the aplay player works again with the screen reader. In 7.0 it didn't. Only every second keypress from the remote was spoken. So if a butten was selected and I pressed the right key twice, only the second press was spoken. Well, it is a little bit more complicated but my english is not good enough to describe it better. Sorry! But the good news is, it works again like it did on OpenELEC 6 or my earlyer Ubuntu installations. :-) The Kodi UI sounds, Music and Video audio is going through HDMI to my AV-Receiver, while the screen reader output goes to a set of little speakers behind my TV set. :-) Now I have screen reader output during playback again! :-) Oh, I run LibreELEC on an Intel Nuc 5CPYH.
I like the new skin. I don't know exactly how it looks visually, but it feels like I have more items on one screen and can reach items with less key presses. The screen reader seams to work generally, but there are things here and there which are not spoken. The new icons on the OSDs, for exampel, the buttons for pause, stop, next and previous, also the icons for bookmarks and some settings are not recognized. Also in the left options menu, where you can change view modes, the setting itself is spoken but not the value. So I hear that I am on the control which changes the view, but I don't hear which view I actually selected.
The movie info screen also is less accessible. Again, I'm not sure how it looks visually, but I think I had more information availabel with the confluence skin. For example the area with the director, author, genre, year and so on is something I cannot find with the screen reader.
As I said, generally it works, and for now I will keep the new skin. But a little update to fix one or the other thing would be nice! :-)
Again, sorry for my english. It looks like I have to watch a lot mor movies and TV shows in english to improve it... :-)
Regards!
2017-02-24, 23:00
Hi, good afternoon. Having read about Kodi, I installed it today.
I'm running it on windows 10, 64 bit, Anniversary Update. Since installing the screan reader for Kodi, the following takes place:
1. I go to the start screen and enter kodi.
2. I select kodi from the results and press enter.
3. upon launch, kodi beeps.
The only thing the program speaks is the word wiindow, then it stops working. (kodi has stop respond thing from windows).
Can any help me to resolve this?
I'm running it on windows 10, 64 bit, Anniversary Update. Since installing the screan reader for Kodi, the following takes place:
1. I go to the start screen and enter kodi.
2. I select kodi from the results and press enter.
3. upon launch, kodi beeps.
The only thing the program speaks is the word wiindow, then it stops working. (kodi has stop respond thing from windows).
Can any help me to resolve this?
2017-03-19, 12:20
Hi all,
update on the crash on Mac OS. There's a friend of mine, the only person I know about, that is able to run Kodi screen reader successfully within Kodi 17 on Mac OS. I had him send me his user data folder, but even using that on my system Kodi screen reader crashes. So apparently there's something very nasty happening under the hood, but I don't know how to track down the issue; even a full debug log from Kodi doesn't tell anything about this crash.
So yea, unless @ruuk or anyone else can give directions on how to debug this issue, I'm starting the process of moving away from Kodi! Sticking to older versions when newer ones have features that I need is something I don't like at all!
update on the crash on Mac OS. There's a friend of mine, the only person I know about, that is able to run Kodi screen reader successfully within Kodi 17 on Mac OS. I had him send me his user data folder, but even using that on my system Kodi screen reader crashes. So apparently there's something very nasty happening under the hood, but I don't know how to track down the issue; even a full debug log from Kodi doesn't tell anything about this crash.
So yea, unless @ruuk or anyone else can give directions on how to debug this issue, I'm starting the process of moving away from Kodi! Sticking to older versions when newer ones have features that I need is something I don't like at all!
2017-04-02, 21:00
Hello,
I have not posted here for a long while. Since that time I have updated my setup to Kodi 17, I'm using it with new estuary skin and I must say I quite like it.
The major disadvantage is that OSD menus are not readable with this addon. To those of you using Kodi 17 can you describe this screen? Is it controllable from the keyboard alone? Are there some texts on the controls or is this pure graphic only?
I am not sure it's doable but I would like to tinker with this a bit to make it more accessible.
There is other thing that significantly affects us relying on this addon since Kodi 17. Service addons are not started automagically after install and they have to be enabled.
I have found a way how to hack around this. I am running Kodi on linux and openelec and I can do the following:
- Install Kodi using the distro package manager
- If you are running Kodi from a desktop session create a ~/.kodi/addons folder structure in your home directory. If your Kodi runs standalone you have to find out where its stores its files and tweak the path accordingly.
- Unzip the zip file with the addon into the addons folder you have just created.
- Start kodi and arrow around the home screen. Make sure you can hear clicking sound as you are navigating on the Kodi home screen.
- Now close kodi by pressing letter s followed by the enter key or if you are on the desktop you can also press alt+F4.
- Now use sqlite3 through the terminal to poke at the database file ~/.kodi/userdata/Database/Addons27.db
- When you can see sqlite prompt type in the following:
UPDATE installed SET enabled=1 WHERE addonID='service.xbmc.tts';
- Now you are done editing sqlite database just exit out of sqlite by typing in
.q
- On the Kodi launch Screen reader can start talking assuming at least one supported tts engine is installed.
I think these steps might apply to other platforms mainly Windows and mac with some minor variations.
Greetings
Peter
I have not posted here for a long while. Since that time I have updated my setup to Kodi 17, I'm using it with new estuary skin and I must say I quite like it.
The major disadvantage is that OSD menus are not readable with this addon. To those of you using Kodi 17 can you describe this screen? Is it controllable from the keyboard alone? Are there some texts on the controls or is this pure graphic only?
I am not sure it's doable but I would like to tinker with this a bit to make it more accessible.
There is other thing that significantly affects us relying on this addon since Kodi 17. Service addons are not started automagically after install and they have to be enabled.
I have found a way how to hack around this. I am running Kodi on linux and openelec and I can do the following:
- Install Kodi using the distro package manager
- If you are running Kodi from a desktop session create a ~/.kodi/addons folder structure in your home directory. If your Kodi runs standalone you have to find out where its stores its files and tweak the path accordingly.
- Unzip the zip file with the addon into the addons folder you have just created.
- Start kodi and arrow around the home screen. Make sure you can hear clicking sound as you are navigating on the Kodi home screen.
- Now close kodi by pressing letter s followed by the enter key or if you are on the desktop you can also press alt+F4.
- Now use sqlite3 through the terminal to poke at the database file ~/.kodi/userdata/Database/Addons27.db
- When you can see sqlite prompt type in the following:
UPDATE installed SET enabled=1 WHERE addonID='service.xbmc.tts';
- Now you are done editing sqlite database just exit out of sqlite by typing in
.q
- On the Kodi launch Screen reader can start talking assuming at least one supported tts engine is installed.
I think these steps might apply to other platforms mainly Windows and mac with some minor variations.
Greetings
Peter
2017-04-06, 07:44
Ok, so tell me again how I enable the TTS add-on after I enable third-party add-ons on KODI 17? I'm using the latest Mac OS.
2017-04-07, 23:54
Has anyone heard from Ruuk about the issues we're having on windows or mac?
2017-04-08, 02:31
(2017-04-07, 23:54)blindndangerous Wrote: Has anyone heard from Ruuk about the issues we're having on windows or mac?I'm aware of the issues, and hope to be able to get some time to fix them. I've just been extraordinarily busy as of late, but I believe I'm getting my schedule into a more manageable state. This add-on is my first priority for development I do in my free time, so as soon as I get some of that I'll be working on it
2017-05-03, 21:31
Hi all,
another update on the crash on Mac OS. It looks like the add-on crashes during the instantiation of the OSXSay backend, which is the default TTS backend on Mac OS. I’ve found out that the VoiceOver backend works and, enabling that, the add-on works as well.
Of course it needs some important fixes in order to be considered usable, but this is a starting point since I (and eventually any other blind programmer) using Mac OS can work on/test the add-on. I’m trying to understand how/where to implement the needed fixes, but that’s another story.
another update on the crash on Mac OS. It looks like the add-on crashes during the instantiation of the OSXSay backend, which is the default TTS backend on Mac OS. I’ve found out that the VoiceOver backend works and, enabling that, the add-on works as well.
Of course it needs some important fixes in order to be considered usable, but this is a starting point since I (and eventually any other blind programmer) using Mac OS can work on/test the add-on. I’m trying to understand how/where to implement the needed fixes, but that’s another story.
2017-05-03, 23:12
(2017-05-03, 21:31)falcon03 Wrote: Hi all,Thanks for taking the time to look at this. I really appriciate it [emoji2]
another update on the crash on Mac OS. It looks like the add-on crashes during the instantiation of the OSXSay backend, which is the default TTS backend on Mac OS. I’ve found out that the VoiceOver backend works and, enabling that, the add-on works as well.
Of course it needs some important fixes in order to be considered usable, but this is a starting point since I (and eventually any other blind programmer) using Mac OS can work on/test the add-on. I’m trying to understand how/where to implement the needed fixes, but that’s another story.
2017-05-04, 10:46
Hi @ruuk,
I wonder wether you could give a hint on a few questions I have on the add-on architecture. Specifically, i am pretty confused in understanding how the various *Reader classes act together in order to compute the spoken text for each control. When/where are they instantiated? How/when are the various methods called?
I know I could figure out the answers by reading the code, but since my python knowledge is not excellent and I am completely new to XBMC add-on development having these answers would accelerate the process of fixing the add-on a lot. Of course I'l send you one or more PR after doing that!
I wonder wether you could give a hint on a few questions I have on the add-on architecture. Specifically, i am pretty confused in understanding how the various *Reader classes act together in order to compute the spoken text for each control. When/where are they instantiated? How/when are the various methods called?
I know I could figure out the answers by reading the code, but since my python knowledge is not excellent and I am completely new to XBMC add-on development having these answers would accelerate the process of fixing the add-on a lot. Of course I'l send you one or more PR after doing that!
2017-05-05, 19:37
Hi @ruuk and all,
so I have the PVR section working exactly as before, YAY!
Before I send a PR I'd like to know what the policy for backwards compatibility is. In fact we need to alter the READERS_WINID_MAP defined in the windows module significantly and in certain cases tweak the reader a little bit.
so I have the PVR section working exactly as before, YAY!
Before I send a PR I'd like to know what the policy for backwards compatibility is. In fact we need to alter the READERS_WINID_MAP defined in the windows module significantly and in certain cases tweak the reader a little bit.
