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The title may sound silly, but on Ubuntu 13.10, I'm getting frequent audible notifications using text to speech.

Is this the "speech dispatcher" and how can I disable it?

Organic Marble
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ljs.dev
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9 Answers9

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Pressing AltSuperS will disable or enable speech dispatcher.

The last thing you should hear is "screen reader off" :-

ps. The Super key is the "windows" key...

LifeBoy
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    many thanks! I'm almost gone nuts already Still didn't manage to find a corresponding setting to disable it completely in Linux mint 19.3 Tried 'universal', 'seeing', 'read', 'speech', 'accessibility' in system search bar. – Drey Jul 16 '21 at 05:03
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    Thank you! My silly cat walked on my laptop and I had no idea what he did!!! LOL – lacostenycoder Feb 20 '23 at 18:45
  • Thanks:D ,for a moment I thought my ubuntu got hacked and it seemed I accidently enable it :D – KuhakuPixel Apr 25 '23 at 03:46
  • Thank you, this thing is really disturb me... – Rikudo Pain May 02 '23 at 15:08
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Go to the Settings application. Select Universal Access. You will see a tab labeled "Seeing". In there should be Screen Reader. Turn that off.

Kaz Wolfe
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Amr Muharam
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9

I had the same problem maybe, starting with Ubuntu 15.04. The Screen reader is off, same with the dispatcher setting; but it keeps telling me what I'm typing.

I have running four dispatcher, all at the time that can't be killed because they're starting again directly. To solve my problem, I went to System Settings -> Sound. On Applications, I muted the four speech-dispatcher.

Jens Erat
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Danny van der Knaap
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  • Worked. But mine is Ubuntu 13.10 – Balaji Perumal Jul 01 '15 at 04:23
  • Thanks to your comment, I solved my speech-dispatcher not working issue! espeak was functionning normally but no sound was coming out of spd-say. It was a simple volume issue, went to the settings you mentioned and voila. Thanks. – wotter Dec 14 '19 at 16:04
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Do you want to change the systemwide settings for Speech Dispatcher? The (yes/no) systemwide settings for Speech Dispatcher can be changed by editing the /etc/default/speech-dispatcher file.

Open the terminal and from the terminal open the /etc/default/speech-dispatcher file for editing in nano text editor: 

sudo nano '/etc/default/speech-dispatcher'

Find the lines in speech-dispatcher that say:

# Set to yes to start system wide Speech Dispatcher
RUN=yes

...and change RUN=yes to RUN=no.

This will disable the system wide speech dispatcher audible notifications, if they have been previously enabled. Press the keyboard combination Ctrl+O and after that press Enter to save the speech-dispatcher file. Press the keyboard combination Ctrl+X to exit nano.

You can still toggle enable/disable the screen reader after it has been turned off systemwide by using the keyboard shortcut Alt+Super+S

karel
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1

Maybe "orca" has bean launched. Kill the "orca" (Screen Reader) process, then you should hear "screen reader off".

Yahya Yahyaoui
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1

Go to universal access under settings then turn off the screen reader

shardy083
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1

I was also facing same problem with Laptop My solution was simple System -> Sound -> Application and then I muted all four Speech-dispatcher and it solves my issue.

ranjeet
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You can disable it in following ways :-

Press Alt + Super + S

or goto System Settings > Universal Access > Turn Off Screen Reader

If you will check your System Setting > Sound > Applications then may be you can find that some instance of Speech Dispatcher is running. You can kill the running instances in this way:-

deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ ps aux | grep speech
deepak    2593  0.0  0.0 289004  5076 ?        Sl   10:10   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_dummy /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/dummy.conf
deepak    2599  0.0  0.0 289004  5008 ?        Sl   10:10   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_cicero /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/cicero.conf
deepak    2603  0.1  0.1 531004  9608 ?        Sl   10:10   0:03 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_espeak /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/espeak.conf
deepak    2632  0.0  0.0 289016  5024 ?        Sl   10:10   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_generic /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/generic.conf
deepak    2635  0.0  0.0 104284  2320 ?        Ssl  10:10   0:00 /usr/bin/speech-dispatcher --spawn --socket-path /run/user/1000/speech-dispatcher/speechd.sock --port 6560 --communication-method unix_socket
deepak    4708  0.0  0.0  21292   944 pts/9    S+   11:05   0:00 grep --color=auto speech
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2593
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2599
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2603
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2632
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2635
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ 
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ ps aux | grep speech
deepak    4719  0.0  0.0  21292   944 pts/9    S+   11:06   0:00 grep --color=auto speech
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$
Deepak Dixit
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  • Also, mind the shortcut in the menu bar in gnome shell. Universal reader was disabled in my settings but enable in the menu bar – MCMZL Oct 21 '19 at 13:53
0

On my Debian 12 as root

apt remove orca

did the trick.

It probably works the same in Ubuntu.

Code ninetyninepointnine
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