Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues, this page will help you fix them.

Installation Issues

If Windows S mode prevents you from running the application installer or the application itself, switch out of Windows S mode. When S mode is active, applications that are not available in the Microsoft Store (like Google Chrome, Utterly Voice, and many other popular applications) are not allowed to run.

The first time you run the application installer or application itself, Windows SmartScreen may show a warning about running the application. The application has been published, but it may take time for the application to develop enough reputation to be well recognized by Microsoft. Select the options that let you run the application. For example, on Windows 10 and 11, click more info then run anyway.

Utterly Voice Will Not Start

There are multiple reasons that Utterly Voice may not start correctly:

• If you do not have write permissions in the directory where you installed Utterly Voice, the application will fail to start, and a popup will explain the issue. Just move the application folder to a location that gives you write permissions.
• If Utterly Voice cannot detect your default microphone, it will fail to start. Double check that you have configured your microphone correctly.
• If your problem is not fixed by one of the above, Get Help.

No Utterances Are Recognized

This is probably due to Setup issues or Microphone issues.

Recognition Error Rate Is Very High

See the Improve Recognition page for advice.

Mouse and Keyboard Commands Do Not Work for Certain Applications

Certain applications and some Windows settings interfaces run as administrator. If Utterly Voice is not running as administrator, it does not have permission to control input for administrator applications. See Run as Administrator and Run as Administrator at Windows Logon.

Show Links Command Not Working

The "show links" command uses the third-party Vimium browser extension.

If this command never works, make sure you have followed the instructions to install and configure this extension.

If this command occasionally does not work, this is probably due to a minor bug in the extension itself. To work around this issue, say "cancel" if the Utterly Voice "browser navigate" exclusive mode is still active, then say "reload page", which will reload the current page and reset the Vimium extension for that page.

In addition, if you say "show links" while the cursor is in an editable text field, the extension will not work as expected. You have to remove focus from the text field first. In this case, you can use the "show force links" command, which presses "escape" to remove focus before running the extension.

Many Commands Suddenly Not Working

Check the "Modes" list in the user interface. If there is a single exclusive mode there, this means that the only commands being processed are those that the exclusive mode allows. For most exclusive modes, you just need to say "cancel" to exit the exclusive mode.

Check the "States" list in the user interface. If you currently have a key or mouse button held, many commands will behave strangely, unless they are expecting the key or button to be held. This might happen if you say "hold shift" to select text, then forget to say "release shift".

YAML Errors

If you edit a settings file, and Utterly Voice displays an error about the file at startup, you probably entered invalid YAML. The easiest way to find the problem in your file, is to use an online YAML validation tool. These tools will show you exactly where the problem is. There are many tools that perform this. One recommended tool is YAML Lint.

Get Help

To ask questions about the application, use our Google Group or Reddit Group. If you are not receiving email messages, be sure to check your spam folder.

If you experience any errors that you cannot resolve, you can also contact us privately via the email address on the about page. Please provide a detailed description of the problem, and attach a log file that was captured when the problem occurred. This log file is named log.txt, and it is found in the application directory. Every time the application starts, the log file is overwritten. If possible, before starting Utterly Voice to create a new log file, open the config\settings.yaml file, update the logRedaction setting to false, then save the settings file. This will enable logging of text transcripts of your utterances. This setting is enabled by default for privacy, in case others have access to your computer, so you may want to return it to the default value once your issue has been resolved. Be sure that your log file does not contain any confidential information before sending it to us.