Workaround: when I hear the distorted sound, I open a terminal and issue this command
$ killall speech-dispatcher This works until the next time I hit a web site that causes the issue. I don't know anything about speech dispatcher, but I wonder if multiple speech-dispatcher processes be interfering with each other? I usually start with $ ps uax | grep speech and I usually see five or six processes twt@host:~$ ps uax | grep speech twt 9165 0.0 0.0 289000 5092 ? Sl 11:01 0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_dummy /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/dummy.conf twt 9168 0.0 0.0 289012 4976 ? Sl 11:01 0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_generic /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/generic.conf twt 9171 0.0 0.0 289000 5088 ? Sl 11:01 0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_cicero /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/cicero.conf twt 9176 0.0 0.0 327320 8756 ? Sl 11:01 0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_espeak /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/espeak.conf twt 9181 0.0 0.0 97216 2220 ? Ssl 11:01 0:00 /usr/bin/speech-dispatcher --spawn --communication-method unix_socket --socket-path /run/user/1000/speech-dispatcher/speechd.sock -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to speech-dispatcher in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1736222 Title: speech-dispatcher distorts all sound Status in speech-dispatcher package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: So, a brand new computer running Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS. In hardinfo summary, my audio adapters are • HDA-Intel - HDA Intel HDMI • HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH • HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia In detail: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller (rev 06) Memory 16kb (non-prefetchable), snd_hda_intel As soon as I load a website in Firefox that utilizes speech-dispatcher (fimfiction.net) all sounds get distorted, whether I click a paragraph for TTS reading or not. The problem seems to go away if I don't use the site after a while. When I close down Firefox the problem still lingers a bit, but maybe not as long. One thing I did which seemed faster was close down everything, then load what I wanted to listen to (Skype, Discord), and if it still persisted I would go into "Sound Settings" and after a few blinks in that window the sound is normal again. While the site is open, according to "Sound Settings" (from the speaker icon menu) and Pulse Audio Volume Controller (pavu) there are 4 copies of this package. Muting them did not help the problem, but moving one of them, and a very specific one, from the "Built-in Audio Analog Stereo" to something else like HDA NVidia (HDMI 3) seems to be a workaround. Just so you know, I do not use the HDMI cable for sound, but instead use the "headphones" jack. If you need any more details, I'll try to provide them. /Edward To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/speech-dispatcher/+bug/1736222/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp