Gboard doesn't download offline voices

SirLordThrThird

I've read in a post here that if you configure Gboard with "Faster voice typing" enabled, you can leave network permissions for a few minutes on and then you'll be able to dictate offline.

I left it on for about 10 minutes, with the Gboard app opened, and I still get a message saying "Can't reach Google right now".

Does anyone have a solution for this?

Thanks.

unwat

SirLordThrThird doffactory

I got it to work.

First time I tried, it didn't work. Checked the app's information, and it looks like GBoard doesn't download the data itself. Its data usage is still set to 0.

Second time I logged in to Google Play, uninstalled then reinstalled GBoard using Google Play, set up GBoard > Voice typing > Faster voice typing - set to on, waited a while, then disabled network access to all three GMS apps and GBoard. Tested voice typing and it worked.

doffactory

I wonder how this works myself. I installed GBoard, and noticed Speech Services by Google got installed too. It enabled the AOSP Graphene keyboard to have voice input.

However, I am really missing swipe typing of GBoard, so I tried to enable it without network. Unfortunately, voice input in GBoard does not work without network access 😔

Did anybody find a solution?

spiral

unwat
Can I download Gboard through Aurora Store to achieve the same thing, or must I sign into Play Store and download Gboard there?

Colvdv

unwat Same. Only, mine stopped working about a week later when I turned on the Spanish Keyboard & the English Keyboard at the same time. Apparently it couldn't decide which was which unless connected to the internet.

I rarely used voice-to-text anyhow, so I ended up disabling it and ultimately going back to the Graphene OS keyboard, which works great for my uses. If it had voice-to-text, I'd probably still use it on occasion, but I don't miss it.

unwat

spiral

The first time I downloaded GBoard using Aurora. At the time I had all three GMS apps installed and "initialized" by tapping log in, but I wasn't logged in. I waited for about 10 minutes before attempting to use voice typing without network access.

I don't know for sure, but all evidence suggests being logged in is necessary.

SirLordThrThird

unwat this is weird.

I've given it a few hours yesterday, and strangely it works with network permissions but airplane mode on.

But if I restrict network to the app, when I tap the mic, it's stuck at "Initialazing".

doffactory

Tried your approach, no success yet 🤔

unwat

doffactory SirLordThrThird

Starting with a tl;dr... To get this to work you need GMS, you don't need to log in to Google. GBoard does all the downloading all by itself and lies about its network usage somehow in its app settings. The download is 25mb and took 9 seconds on my phone. My hypothesis about Google Play doing the download on GBoard's behalf appears to be wrong.

I was able to do voice typing with airplane mode on. I tried again with airplane mode off and network access to GBoard revoked, and it worked then too. I have no idea why you're running into problems. It's working for me each time.

You can skip the rest of this post if you don't care about what I did or what I found messing around with GBoard and getting logs via logcat.

Attempting to download with just Aurora and GBoard, no GMS:

W GooglePlayServicesUtil: com.google.android.inputmethod.latin requires the Google Play Store, but it is missing.

So, yes, you need GMS installed.

Installed via Google Play, then revoked network access to GMS:

I SpeechFactory: SpeechRecognitionFactory.updateOnDeviceUserPreference():309 On-device switch enabled by user. Triggering download.
I SpeechPackManager: SpeechPackManager.syncPacksNow():306 syncPacksNow()
I SpeechPackManager: SpeechPackManager.registerManifest():451 registerManifest() : https://dl.google.com//android/voice/gboard/en_us/ondevice_recognizer/superpacks-manifest-20220414.json
I SP      : Syncing speech-packs (34060213) with slices: [{gboard-en-US-v5101, m:b:*:*, fg}], metadata: false
I SP      : Requesting download of URL https://dl.google.com/android/voice/gboard/en-US/v5101/gboard-en-US-v5101.zip to gboard-en-US-v5101.zip.fetched (constraints: m:b:u:l)

GBoard is downloading the speech packs by itself (I didn't copy and paste its download successful message).

GMS installed, not logged in, no network privs. Installed via Aurora:

I SP      : Download stopped: speech-packs:gboard-en-US-v5101, succeeded foreground, size: 90844371

doffactory

May I ask how much data got downloaded?

MetropleX

doffactory SirLordThrThird have you changed the network permission for any of the 3 Play Services apps and have you made sure to install all 3?

doffactory

SirLordThrThird same for me....

Hat

SirLordThrThird @MetropleX I have the same behavior with translators (no google play
services installed). It would be great a fake airplane mode for some apps in addition of network permission.

SirLordThrThird

MetropleX Hi, I did had network disabled for Google Play Services.

I tried again yesterday. I deleted GBoard, installed again and left network access on for about 24 hours, after enabling "Faster voice typing". All that time I was using the keyboard (not using voice typing).

Now, same thing happens. If I disable network for GBoard, it's stuck on "Initializing" when trying to use it.
BUT, if I keep it disabled, but I also use airplane mode, voice typing works flawlessly.

So I assume the problem is that the app believes it should be able to reach google when network access is disabled but airplane mode is off. So it waits for a connection attempt to timeout and that's what I'm seeing.

Is there any solution?

I have 3 languages in my keyboard, English and 2 other European languages.

If I remove the other 2 and leave only US English, voice typing works with Gtalk network disabled.

Now I added just 1 of the 2 extra languages and I'm going to leave it with network access allowed for a few hours and try again.

kyuweftea

My issue was that my keyboard language was English (Canada). To get this to work, I added the English (US) language and switched to it by long-pressing the space bar. When I'm done voice typing, I switch back to English (Canada).

Another frustrating caveat: If you have any language installed that supports multilingual typing with English (US) (such as French (Canada)), offline voice typing will not work for English (US), even if multilingual typing is disabled.

Side question: Does anyone know where to find an official list of offline voice typing languages supported in gboard?

MetropleX

kyuweftea

Our new all-neural, on-device Gboard speech recognizer is initially being launched to all Pixel phones in American English only.

Source: https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/03/an-all-neural-on-device-speech.html

Would appear that things haven't changed since as I can't find mention of any other languages being made available anywhere.

Wonder if @Wonderfall uses it for French as well as English?

kyuweftea

MetropleX Thanks for taking a look! Also, I just discovered a way to get an up to date list:

Install Speech Services by Google
Enable Google Voice Typing keyboard
Go to some text field and switch to the Google Voice Typing keyboard
Tap the gear icon
Under Offline speech, tap Add a language

Looks like there's just 4 more variants of English (no Canada 😢 ) and 4 other languages (including Français (France) ).

doffactory

Colvdv Same here. The only thing I am missing is contoured keys from GrapheneOS keyboard and glide typing

kyuweftea

SirLordThrThird Another option you can try is to enable the Google Voice Typing keyboard in settings, and use it for voice-to-text instead of gboard.

jamstock

SirLordThrThird Did you get it working?