[lookidok]

So what seems to to be the problem with the Google Engine. I enable it but seems never to produce any sound even though. This is what I get in the log.

-- CUT --
09:50:10 T:2765507392 NOTICE: service.xbmc.tts: ERROR: Failed to open Google TTS URL - HTTP Error 500: Internal Server Error
--CUT--

Has the url string to google TTS changed? Is that why Google is broken? How can I help debug this?

For the record the other engines work pretty well espeak flite festival even speech-dispatcher but Google has better quality foreign voices which is why I wish to use it.

Thanks.

Does it work at all on google, or does it just die at some point? I did a quick test and the URL still seems to work for google. What language are you using, and is it set in the addon settings?

Well I can use a Python script to contact google TTS and that works fine, but I get nothing at all from Google within Kodi. Does not matter what language I set. English Italian French none of it seems to work.

It is a pity because it has quite a nice interface to setting it up and I would really like to use those voices as I already do some transcription for my partially sighted father and he understands those voices perfectly when played back at 0.85 speed.

How can I help to debug this issue? I don't think the logs are being terrible verbose but is there something I can do to patch the module to make it output more verbose messages about the transport communications between the plugin and google?

I am willing to go the extra mile simply because this is the last piece of a puzzle when I can move my father off off traditional TV watching to a more liberated and engaging way of watching TV.

Thanks.

EDIT:

Ahh I have just done some testing by dumping the http traffic and looking at the strings. Seems it is being passed correctly and and something is being sent back but no audio is being played.

This is what it looks like.

--- CUT ---
Frame 23: 304 bytes on wire (2432 bits), 304 bytes captured (2432 bits)
Ethernet II, Src: QuantaCo_db:d3:3c (00:16:36:db:d3:3c), Dst: LinksysG_ff:b1:8f (00:06:25:ff:b1:8f)
Internet Protocol Version 4, Src: 192.168.0.58 (192.168.0.58), Dst: 216.58.210.78 (216.58.210.78)
Transmission Control Protocol, Src Port: 56180 (56180), Dst Port: 80 (80), Seq: 1, Ack: 1, Len: 238
Hypertext Transfer Protocol

No. Time Source Destination Protocol Length Info
29 5.408273 216.58.210.78 192.168.0.58 HTTP 1162 HTTP/1.1 200 OK (audio/mpeg)

Frame 29: 1162 bytes on wire (9296 bits), 1162 bytes captured (9296 bits)
Ethernet II, Src: LinksysG_ff:b1:8f (00:06:25:ff:b1:8f), Dst: QuantaCo_db:d3:3c (00:16:36:db:d3:3c)
Internet Protocol Version 4, Src: 216.58.210.78 (216.58.210.78), Dst: 192.168.0.58 (192.168.0.58)
Transmission Control Protocol, Src Port: 80 (80), Dst Port: 56180 (56180), Seq: 2837, Ack: 239, Len: 1096
[3 Reassembled TCP Segments (3932 bytes): #25(1418), #27(1418), #29(1096)]
Hypertext Transfer Protocol
Media Type

No. Time Source Destination Protocol Length Info
38 7.935690 192.168.0.58 216.58.210.78 HTTP 307 GET /translate_tts?tl=en&q=PROGRAMS HTTP/1.1

Frame 38: 307 bytes on wire (2456 bits), 307 bytes captured (2456 bits)
Ethernet II, Src: QuantaCo_db:d3:3c (00:16:36:db:d3:3c), Dst: LinksysG_ff:b1:8f (00:06:25:ff:b1:8f)
Internet Protocol Version 4, Src: 192.168.0.58 (192.168.0.58), Dst: 216.58.210.78 (216.58.210.78)
Transmission Control Protocol, Src Port: 56181 (56181), Dst Port: 80 (80), Seq: 1, Ack: 1, Len: 241
Hypertext Transfer Protocol

No. Time Source Destination Protocol Length Info
46 7.965605 216.58.210.78 192.168.0.58 HTTP 752 HTTP/1.1 200 OK (audio/mpeg)



--- CUT ---

So where are the samples being saved to? Maybe I can examine them directly?

For the record I tried those strings with wget and a custom Useragent string and it downloaded the file down fine.. without the useragent it would not. Oh well.

EDIT2:

Ok I think the problem is loclalised because I just tried the plugin on my laptop with kodi and it worked fine. It might be a audio permission error on the other machine but not for flite or festival.. weird. What it does mean is I can get ti working on a new build and so for that THANK YOU! Great plugin and will help my father enormously.