Warning: An update made Google TTS stop working

[mongrel]

This is not Pleco's problem but I'm just warning you.

Last night I installed updates, one of which was Google TTS (which I use within Pleco reader), on my two tablets. An Asus ME572C Memo Pad with Android 5.0.1 stopped working, while a Nexus 9 with Android N preview still works. I had had these two set up as identically as possible, with all settings also the same as far as possible.
After trying a few other things I hard-reset this tablet, reinstalled only Pleco and Google TTS, and it is not fixed.

I know it isn't Pleco's problem because when I go to Settings/Accessibility/Text-to-speech output, "listen to an example", it won't work in Chinese (China) or Cantonese (Hong Kong). Edit: It does work in various other languages.

 

[mikelove]

Yep, we've had a few reports of this now, and Google Play tech support are helpfully blaming us despite the fact that (as you say) the problem appears even when you're not using it through Pleco. However, there are a bunch of 1-star reviews complaining about the update and despite the ignorance of Google Play support I suspect that the team at Google that actually develops Google TTS is already working on a fix.

Best alternative in the meantime is to use some other Chinese TTS, or one of our paid ones. (don't yet have a Cantonese TTS among them but we're hoping to add one next year - delay is because it's brand new and still in beta testing at the moment)

 

[mongrel]

Thank you very much for your reply; I'm happy to hear that it will probably start working again someday on this, my favorite tablet.
I will certainly buy and try any Cantonese TTS you produce, and anything else for Cantonese. 88

[Wish list for your TTS, compared to Google, would be longer but just natural-length pauses after commas but even more so after end-of-sentence punctuation. This is the single worst thing.]

 

[mikelove]

Actually that one can be easily adjusted in our TTS' library settings - will see about adding an option for it in a future release, TBH our impression was that people were mostly interested in longer pauses between words (which are actually much harder to do).

 

[mongrel]

Depends on the stage of learning, and configurable delay would be great for that. Thanks for considering it.
I get digestible word-to-word speech by setting the speed as low as I need to, and this still sounds reasonably like someone speaking slowly. But the short gaps after punctuation remain unnatural and makes the speech sound hurried, at any speed.

 

[mongrel]

"there are a bunch of 1-star reviews complaining about the [Google TTS] update"

Where did you see those please?
I would hope to know that they have seen this and are working on the fix.

Here is the more accurately worded feedback I just sent. I wish they would reply to these:
"TTS, Android 5.0.1. English works right. German, Finnish, Cantonese, Mandarin, etc, work like this: Delete the voice data and they will play the example sentence *one time*. After that, after they have downloaded the voice data, they will not play the example sentence (nor work in the apps where I need them).
I hope for a reply saying that you see the problem and are working on it.
Thank you."

 

[mikelove]

We noted several when going through the Google TTS reviews, just scroll a bit (particularly for reviews that came out a few days after it was updated). If it's indefinitely broken then we'd probably look to offer much more aggressive pricing for that new Cantonese TTS engine than we had previously envisioned

 

[mongrel]

Oh, the boss made a joke!