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My Firefox version is 102.0.1.

I upgraded my desktop from Ubuntu 20.04 LTS to 22.04 LTS.

I noted now that Firefox was installed under snapd.

I noticed these events happening on my system:

  1. No voices on getVoices() https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/SpeechSynthesis/getVoices

  2. On my system,


$ spd-say -O
OUTPUT MODULES
espeak-ng-mbrola
espeak-ng

$ spd-say -L
NAME   LANGUAGE  VARIANT

spd-say -L outputs an empty table, even though spd-say "Hello world" works.

The second module espeak-ng has voices installed. Running spd-say -o espeak-ng -L produces a long table.

The problem is that the default output module has no voices. How do I set the default module?

  1. spd-conf -d works

Is this a permission issue? Is TTS needed to be enabled somewhere?

Best Regards, Configentia

LiveWireBT
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Configentia
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  • It's pretty likely that the reason is snapd. You may want to remove the firefox snap and install a deb package instead. Here is how it can be done. – mook765 Jul 12 '22 at 15:04
  • Hi @mook765

    1. I managed to remove Firefox from snapd as per the link you gave and installed as a deb package.

    2. There are still no voices in the voice array.

    What can be done?

    Thank you.

     – Configentia Jul 23 '22 at 08:54
  • I have made some observations and updated the problem description. Please see the above problem description. – Configentia Jul 23 '22 at 16:04
  • I reported it as a bug, because to me it clearly is a regression, a feature that is supposed to work and has worked before. bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1987979 – LiveWireBT Aug 29 '22 at 17:44
  • As I can see in the bug report I filed and in the release notes for 22.04 Ubuntu/Canonical and Mozilla are actively working to improve experience with snapped Firefox on Ubuntu which also benefits Flatpak in some areas. While I was not happy with my experience with snapped Firefox not surviving a day in previous releases due to updates, it is now informing me that it has an update scheduled. There is a blog series you can also follow to be in the loop: https://ubuntu.com/blog/improving-firefox-snap-performance-part-3 – LiveWireBT Sep 02 '22 at 00:01

1 Answers1

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Unfortunately I did not encounter the problem you are describing myself, but I just created a new TTS utility which could help you as well. It works offline, for free with AI-based high-quality voice. You can you it everywhere: Firefox browser, PDF reader, chrome, LibreOffice, etc.

Feel free to have a look, I just created a video tutorial with installation steps and DEMO: https://youtu.be/hb1ZVwUcPCU

Download link and Project page: https://github.com/MattePalte/Verbify-TTS

Feel free to leave comment/open issue to discuss new ideas, problems or constructive criticism.

Hoping it will help you.

Matteo Paltenghi
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  • I tried it and filed a bug on your repository. Having a requirements file with old dependencies that don't work on a newer version of Ubuntu which the OP's question was about is not so nice. My Python skills aren't great and could be improved, if I had more time I'd support you project by bringing it on track with these best practices and tools: https://cjolowicz.github.io/posts/hypermodern-python-01-setup/ https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/371/pipx-installable-isolated-python-applications – LiveWireBT Sep 02 '22 at 00:10