TextToSpeech in a Service

Question

I've got a problem with TTS in a Service. It acts like it wants to talk but it never does. Watching the LogCat it prints "TTS received: the text it should speak" and I Log when it init's and that's showing success. I've tried creating a thread for it, that didnt help. onUtteranceComplete never triggers either. I've even done a while loop like this (just for testing):

while(mTTS.isSpeaking()) {
      Log.d("", "speaking");
}

...and it's never speaking

I know TTS is setup correctly because it works in a regular Activity

Here's my code.

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Locale;

import android.app.Service;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.media.AudioManager;
import android.os.IBinder;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech.OnInitListener;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech.OnUtteranceCompletedListener;
import android.util.Log;

public class TTSService extends Service implements OnInitListener, OnUtteranceCompletedListener {
TextToSpeech mTTS;

    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        Log.d("", "TTSService Created!");
        mTTS = new TextToSpeech(getApplicationContext(), this);


        //I've tried it in a thread....
        /*new Thread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                HashMap<String, String> myHashStream = new HashMap<String, String>();
                myHashStream.put(TextToSpeech.Engine.KEY_PARAM_STREAM, String.valueOf(AudioManager.STREAM_NOTIFICATION));
                myHashStream.put(TextToSpeech.Engine.KEY_PARAM_UTTERANCE_ID, "1");

                mTTS.setLanguage(Locale.US);
                //mTTS.setOnUtteranceCompletedListener(this);
                mTTS.speak("I'm saying some stuff to you!", TextToSpeech.QUEUE_FLUSH, myHashStream);        
            }

        }).start();*/

        //I've tried it not in a thread...
        HashMap<String, String> myHashStream = new HashMap<String, String>();
        myHashStream.put(TextToSpeech.Engine.KEY_PARAM_STREAM, String.valueOf(AudioManager.STREAM_NOTIFICATION));
        myHashStream.put(TextToSpeech.Engine.KEY_PARAM_UTTERANCE_ID, "1");

        mTTS.setLanguage(Locale.US);
        mTTS.setOnUtteranceCompletedListener(this);
        mTTS.speak("I'm saying some stuff to you!", TextToSpeech.QUEUE_FLUSH, myHashStream);    

    }

    @Override
    public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {

        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public void onInit(int status) {
        Log.d("", "TTSService onInit: " + String.valueOf(status));
        if(status == TextToSpeech.SUCCESS){
            Log.d("", "TTS Success");
        }
    }

    public void onUtteranceCompleted(String uttId) {
        Log.d("", "done uttering");
        if(uttId == "1") {
            mTTS.shutdown();
        }

    }

}

Thanks

Answer 1

I've just had a similar issue - It was due to mTTS.speak being called before TTS was initiated by onInit(). I tackled it slightly differently by placing mTTS.speak() in a separate function and then calling that function from within onInit if (TextToSpeech.Successful), therefore playing the speech after it is initiated and not before (from onStart() ect).

Answer 2

Ok, I've got it figured out now! What was happening is it was trying to speak before TTS was initialized. So in a thread I wait for ready to not == 999. Once its either 1 or anything else we'll then take care of speaking. This might not be safe putting it in a while loop but... It's working nonetheless.

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Locale;

import android.app.Service;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.media.AudioManager;
import android.os.IBinder;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech.OnInitListener;
import android.speech.tts.TextToSpeech.OnUtteranceCompletedListener;
import android.util.Log;

public class TTSService extends Service implements OnInitListener, OnUtteranceCompletedListener {
TextToSpeech mTTS;
int ready = 999;
    @Override
    public void onCreate() {

        Log.d("", "TTSService Created!");
        mTTS = new TextToSpeech(getApplicationContext(), this);

        new Thread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(ready == 999) {
                    //wait
                }
                if(ready==1){
                HashMap<String, String> myHashStream = new HashMap<String, String>();
                myHashStream.put(TextToSpeech.Engine.KEY_PARAM_STREAM, String.valueOf(AudioManager.STREAM_NOTIFICATION));
                myHashStream.put(TextToSpeech.Engine.KEY_PARAM_UTTERANCE_ID, "1");

                mTTS.setLanguage(Locale.US);
                //mTTS.setOnUtteranceCompletedListener(this);
                mTTS.speak("I'm saying some stuff to you!", TextToSpeech.QUEUE_FLUSH, myHashStream);

                } else { 
                    Log.d("", "not ready"); 
                    }
            }

        }).start();


        stopSelf();

    }

    @Override
    public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {

        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
        mTTS.shutdown();
        super.onDestroy();
    }
    @Override
    public void onInit(int status) {
        Log.d("", "TTSService onInit: " + String.valueOf(status));
        if (status == TextToSpeech.SUCCESS)
        {
            ready = 1;

        } else {
            ready = 0;
            Log.d("", "failed to initialize");
        }

    }

    public void onUtteranceCompleted(String uttId) {
        Log.d("", "done uttering");
        if(uttId == "1") {
            mTTS.shutdown();
        }

    }


}