Offline speech-to-text stopped working?

Shendai

Hello,

As of the most recent update, anytime I attempt to use speech to text, an error comes up at the bottom indicating "Voice input is not available right now."

This is using the Google (gboard) keyboard. I've changed no settings at all. Offline voice-to-text has been working reliably for a year+ ever since I first enabled it, I can only assume this is related to the update to Android 15.

Has anyone ran into this, and is there a fix available? I remember getting it to work initially was a bit tricky, gboard needed temporary network access to download a database, I believe, after which I again disabled network access.

Thanks in advance for any input or suggestions.

DeletedUser87

Shendai is your Google TTS app up to date?
Should look something like this:
Version: googletts.google-speech-apk_20240930.01_p0.680763480

com.google.android.tts
versionCode 210514434

targetSdk 35

also I assume Google Play Services and GBoard are already updated.

Shendai

DeletedUser87 Thanks for the quick response.

Play Services & Gboard are both fully updated.

I do not have the googletts.google-speech-apk installed apparently, there is no com.google.android.tts in my system apps. Would upgrading to Android 15 have removed this?? I don't recall installing this previously.

I do see it via the Aurora store, but I'd rather not install anything (particularly from Google) if I don't have to. How could have my speech to text worked previously without this?

DeletedUser87

Shendai I don't know, maybe it was the update... I can't imagine that GBoard could have offline voice recognition/TTS without some framework to support it, unless it isn't offline. I can't test it out myself as I'm obviously on A15 as well now. I use the TTS engine for the automatic transcript in the Recorder app. There's no real harm installing it and trying it out (and deleting it at any time). But I somehow suspect that if there was no local TTS engine, it was processed by Google's servers and wasn't offline after all.
On a side note: if you're looking for a good TTS app that is source code available, check out FUTO keyboard or FUTO voice input. It's still in an early stage, but it works surprisingly well and truly is offline (there's no way for it to BE online). Maybe that's an even better replacement for Google's TTS.

rellhom

DeletedUser87 On a side note: if you're looking for a good TTS app that is source code available, check out FUTO keyboard or FUTO voice input. I

does it also work for Japanese?

Kras

I also had this issue. I re-enabled the network permission for gboard, toggled the 'Faster voice typing' toggle off and on again in gboard settings, then waited 5-10 mins to hopefully allow the language packs to download again. Voice dictation is now working again for me with network disabled.

DeletedUser87

Kras yeah I just checked and GBoard seems to be self sufficient and doesn't need Google TTS to work (or rather, installing it makes no difference). The offline models have to be loaded by GBoard itself.
Sorry for the confusion, I somehow had the TTS in mind as a standalone app for voice input (which works like a keyboard too) and assumed it was also used by GBoard anyway.

Shendai

Kras Thank you both for your help.

Kras, following your process worked perfectly and offline voice to text is restored. This is a feature I really want to have and use routinely, so losing it would have been a major pain point. I may explore other open-source options at some point, but this works with good accuracy, and as long as my dictation and typing don't go to Google, I'm happy.

Shendai

I request this issue be re-opened.

While this process works, I've now had to do it every day for 3 days in a row as each day voice to text stops working again. This is irritating and becoming a point of friction in GrapheneOS.

Does anyone know of a solution that works permanently like before?

This problem only presented itself with Android 15, and I am definitely not rebooting my phone, either manually or automatically. Voice to text simply stops working every day until the procedure listed earlier in this discussion by Kras is performed.

Kras

Shendai I've been having the issue reoccur as well, I'm inclined to believe it's a bug with gboard. Hopefully Google pushes a fix soon.

Shendai

Kras Hopefully its legitimately a bug, and not Google wanting to disable functionality for users who choose to not allow network access for gboard.

DeletedUser87

rellhom nope, as with most FOSS keyboards, no Mandarin/Chinese, no Korean and no Japanese sadly. For that I always just recommend GBoard, as much as it hurts.

Carlos-Anso

rellhom
Theres both TTS and STT in a range of languages available from https://k2-fsa.github.io/sherpa/onnx/index.html

rellhom

DeletedUser87

thanks for the info, this is depressing as the main goal of my daily driver to carry around is to be able to do language learning throughout the day

rellhom

DeletedUser87

is there a way to use GBoard while minimizing privacy risks? Japanese language and text to voice are important enough to me to go that route if necessary

DeletedUser87

rellhom the principle would be to download the language to the device and deny it network access (assuming there is no Play Services in the same profile). But it seems like it needs an internet connection once in a few days to keep working (the voice input). I don't know if that's a bug or intentional...

Shendai

I may have found a solution. It's now been working for 3 days in a row.

As a troubleshooting step, I went to gboard app settings and selected "clear storage". Then I once again followed the process Kras outlined, and it seems to have worked. Network permission is revoked, and speech-to-text works as before. I needed to reset some minor settings for gboard (like the theme) but that was it.

I did try clearing the cache first, then redoing the "Kras process" but that didn't work. I had to fully clear storage for gboard.

If someone else (Kras?) could test this to confirm it works for them as well, I believe this issue could be closed after successful confirmation.