SAPI5 and RDP and XP

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • Gumby
    Moderator
    • May 2004
    • 437

    SAPI5 and RDP and XP

    So I recently tried some alternative voices for speech synthesis because I'm fed up with the sound of Microsoft Mary. I got some weird results and after a while I have discovered another RDP issue.

    As far as I can tell, after an RDP session SAPI5 is broken. It works during the RDP session, and before a session, but afterwards is left broken. Audio (wave playback) continues to work. SAPI 4 seems to work, however.

    If you login via VNC and then disconnect, speech is fixed. I expect going up to the console would work also. But VNC is considerably more painful to use than RDP, so not really my favoured solution.

    So that rules out Cepstral Millie and also AT&T Audrey, which appears in SAPi4 settings but plays back at double speed. L&H British Female does seem to work.
    ----------------------
    www.gumbrell.com
  • Gumby
    Moderator
    • May 2004
    • 437

    #2
    Can anybody try this out on, say, Vista?
    ----------------------
    www.gumbrell.com

    Comment

    • Paul_B
      Automated Home Legend
      • Jul 2006
      • 608

      #3
      I given up with RDP to my Cortex server ever since I upgraded the RDP client to version 6.1 / Vista version. Although I was connecting to Console and set the session to leave sound on remote machine it seems to ignore these flags. This was all working when I used the native RDP client for XP

      I've now bought a copy of Radmin, http://www.radmin.com/, as it is very responsive and cheaper than Dame Ware which was another option I looked at.

      Paul

      Comment

      • Gumby
        Moderator
        • May 2004
        • 437

        #4
        I've just discovered that it seems to behave differently depending on whether I close the connection at the Cortex host end (Start -> Disconnect) or by closing the RDP window on my desktop client. Ie: It seems to work if I close it from the Mac client window.

        However, I wonder what will happen during a reboot scenario - deliberate or crash-initiated?

        I'll give Radmin a go. Tried VNC but that has it's downsides.
        ----------------------
        www.gumbrell.com

        Comment

        • Gumby
          Moderator
          • May 2004
          • 437

          #5
          Ah - no Mac client. Can I be bothered to try it under VMware/Parallels ... ?
          ----------------------
          www.gumbrell.com

          Comment

          • Paul_B
            Automated Home Legend
            • Jul 2006
            • 608

            #6
            Sorry I had forgotten your client was a Mac

            Comment

            • John Winter
              Automated Home Sr Member
              • Dec 2007
              • 56

              #8
              I get a similar issue whereby both audio and speech fail to work after an RDP session - locally log back into the 2k3 server and everything works again....
              Which leads me on to another question - I have the trial version of cepstral millie, but are there any decent free speech engines?
              --------------------------

              www.nodeone.blogspot.com

              Comment

              • Gumby
                Moderator
                • May 2004
                • 437

                #9
                Finally stumbled on a solution for this issue.

                To recap, Cortex on XP Professional, connect via RDP from Mac RDP client. Audio (wav) playback works before, during and after an RDP session. Speech synthesis works before and during but not after disconnecting. If I then go and manually log into the Cortex platform, speech synthesis works again. This is even with "Leave speech at host" type option set.

                Hence it seems to be related to the platform computer being in the "screen locked after RDP disconnect" state. Which some information indicates is the same as the screen saver lock, but I do not get the same behaviour when I try locking with a screen saver.

                Anyway, the workaround is to execute this command instead of disconnecting the RDP session:

                tscon.exe 0 /dest:console

                This command sends this session back to the console (which you could argue is where it came from. This issue seems to me to be something to do with cobbling XP to only support a single session).

                This can be placed in a batch file on the desktop for convenience. Note that I have fast user switching disabled - this may be required for this to work.

                Note that for Vista and Win7 the command may be different (assuming the problem still exists). This might work:

                tscon %sessionname% /dest:console
                ----------------------
                www.gumbrell.com

                Comment

                • Gumby
                  Moderator
                  • May 2004
                  • 437

                  #10
                  For clarity, you create the batch file and/or execute the command on the computer hosting the RDP session, ie running Cortex, not the computer you are connecting from.

                  In my case I would struggle to run a DOS command on a Mac
                  ----------------------
                  www.gumbrell.com

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X