Dear all,

I am a Linux usser wishing to use w Windows VM running under VirtualBox
and with NVDA running into it as a screen reader.

Since I am based in France I downloaded NVDA2020.1 which seemed to be
the latest release, at least on the french website. Later on I
discovered on the nvaccess.org website that 2021.1 seems to be released
so if you think switching to this version could help to solve my problem
I would like no, but then I'd ask why this is not yet on the french
website, is it because of a lack of translations? In which case I'm
happy to help.

Coming to the problem. The VM works. We can hear Windows' system sounds
and it is also possible to play videos on YouTube through FireFix from
within the VM and that will produce sound.

What does not work is that NVDA does not speak and that even the sounds
one is supposed to hear when it starts up or when it stops can't be
heard.

The speech synthetizers (Windows OneCore voices for french) are
installed but it is not possible to listen to a sample.

Almost the same goes for the narrator, the difference bbeing that it's
possible ot hear it beep but not speak.

The Windows in question has been activated.

I am a visually impaired engineer surrounded by sighted and skilled
engineers so we will be happpy to provide any information that could
help you in assisting me.

Any hint warmly welcome! Thanks!

Sébastien.

if your not getting speech or sound on your vm. Then you have to enable the sound card in your vm settings.

tim (2021/07/29 10:38 -0400):

if your not getting speech or sound on your vm. Then you have to enable the
sound card in your vm settings.

Sorry, but I think you somehow misread my explanations.

I do get sound in the VM. The Windows' system sound do work, as well as
listening to YouTube videos from within FireFox ran in the VM.

So the issue seems a bit more involved.

Sébastien.

The latest release is now 2021.1.

If you want to go with a 2020 release for the VM for the moment, and I wouldn't unless add-on compatibility is an issue, then 2020.4 would make the most sense.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H1, Build 19043  

Yep.  Discipline.  Accountability.  Joy.  Fun.  Responsibility.

That's what life is about.  And in that order.

        ~ Liza Minnelli

 

Thanks! Do you have any idea why these are not proposed on
Thomas Refis <thomas.refis@...>https://www.nvda-fr.org

I'm absolutely fine with using the latest version, I just assumed if
they were not offered on the above mentionned website it's because they
have not yet been fully internationalised or localised?

I'm quite new to the NVDA community so the status of Thomas Refis
<thomas.refis@...>https://www.nvda-fr.org with regards to
nvaccess.org is unclear to me. Any explanation is welcome and thanks,
already, for the advice to upgrade! Will do so as soon as I have sighted
assistance.

Not sure thoughtit will solve the problem completely, since the narrator
does not speak either.

Sébastien.

On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 10:55 AM, Sébastien Hinderer wrote:

I'm absolutely fine with using the latest version, I just assumed if
they were not offered on the above mentionned website it's because they
have not yet been fully internationalised or localised?

-
To my knowledge, NVDA itself is "ready for prime time" in all languages when it is released.  Language localization is part and parcel of the product itself.

If I'm incorrect, I'm sure one of our regular readers who's "on the inside" at NV Access will correct me.  But I know of virtually no products that offer language localization that are ever released without whatever languages they have translations for being a part of the package.  You can pretty much check this out yourself if you look at the install directory for NVDA after you have installed it.

Right now the install directory is C:\Program Files (x86)\NVDA
Under that folder is the locale folder which you can tell by the names of the folders are the language localizations.  There is an FR folder there, along with 72 others.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H1, Build 19043  

Yep.  Discipline.  Accountability.  Joy.  Fun.  Responsibility.

That's what life is about.  And in that order.

        ~ Liza Minnelli

 

On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 10:55 AM, Sébastien Hinderer wrote:

I'm quite new to the NVDA community so the status of Thomas Refis
<thomas.refis@...>https://www.nvda-fr.org with regards to
nvaccess.org is unclear to me.

-
First, I want to make it clear that I am not, in any way, trying to criticize the maintainer of the referenced page.  He's doing a service for the French speaking user community.

That being said, here is the translated-to-English footer that's right on his main page:

Copyright © 2006-2021 NVDA-FR and ProgAccess
This site is not affiliated with NVAccess (developer of NVDA).
The team on this site does not have any NVDA developers, for suggestions for new features, please check out NVAccess's GitHub.

------
I would not expect any announcements on this page regarding French translations of NVDA because NVDA always ships with same.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H1, Build 19043  

Yep.  Discipline.  Accountability.  Joy.  Fun.  Responsibility.

That's what life is about.  And in that order.

        ~ Liza Minnelli

 

On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 10:55 AM, Sébastien Hinderer wrote:

Not sure thought it will solve the problem completely, since the narrator
does not speak either.

-
Don't discount that there could be an issue with the Windows VM itself, particularly since Narrator isn't working.

You are working in an environment that I have no way to imitate or test in, so I can't be of much more help.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H1, Build 19043  

Yep.  Discipline.  Accountability.  Joy.  Fun.  Responsibility.

That's what life is about.  And in that order.

        ~ Liza Minnelli

 

Sébastien,

You probably already know this, but there is a group dedicated to francophone users of NVDA.  Here's the group description from their Groups.io main page as well as the primary group addresses:

Liste par et pour les utilisateurs francophones de NVDA.

• Post: nvda-fr@groups.io
• Subscribe: nvda-fr+subscribe@groups.io
• Unsubscribe: nvda-fr+unsubscribe@groups.io
• Group Owner: nvda-fr+owner@groups.io
• Help: nvda-fr+help@groups.io

--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H1, Build 19043  

Yep.  Discipline.  Accountability.  Joy.  Fun.  Responsibility.

That's what life is about.  And in that order.

        ~ Liza Minnelli

 

Thanks! I'll definitely give it a try as soon as an opportunity arises.
I don't see why I owuldn't. Sinc e things do not work anyway, there
seems to be not much to loose. Does it matter whether I upgrade or first
uninstall the old version and theninstall the new one?

Thanks,

Sébastien.

Thanks. I'll try to provide some logs if, after having installed the
latest version things do not improve.

Sébastien.

Thanks Brian and sorry, my copy/paste included a name who should not
have been there. The e-mail address included was also irrelevent, my
apologize for that. The only right thing was the page's URL.

Thanks again, things seem to become a bit less cloudy, I think.

Sébastien.

Dear Brian,

No, I was not aware of the french speaking group, thanks!

That may indeed be helpful in some situations and in any case worth
following!

For this discussion, though, it feels like the present group is a better
place to have it, well I hope it doesn't annoy anybody.

Best wishes,

Sébastien.

Thanks, Chris!

We did try espeach and didn't encounter more success. Regarding the
output device, as far as I can remember, we had two choices: speakers or
microsoft sound mappper or something like that. I can't say for sure
that we tried all the combinations of synthesizers and outputs but those
we tried didn't work. Also there is this strange things that the tunes
NVDA makes when it starts and stops we couldn't hear either. To me this
seems to indicate that the problem is wider than just a matter of which
speech synthetizer is used, but I also suspect there may be several
problems, and perhaps installing the latest version of NVDA will solve
at least some of them.

Anyway, many thanks to all for your warm support, I deeply appreciate!

Sébastien.

Hello,

On Thu, 29 Jul 2021 14:17:43 +0200
Sébastien Hinderer <Sebastien.Hinderer@...> wrote:

Coming to the problem. The VM works. We can hear Windows' system sounds
and it is also possible to play videos on YouTube through FireFix from
within the VM and that will produce sound.

What does not work is that NVDA does not speak and that even the sounds
one is supposed to hear when it starts up or when it stops can't be
heard.

The speech synthetizers (Windows OneCore voices for french) are
installed but it is not possible to listen to a sample.

Almost the same goes for the narrator, the difference bbeing that it's
possible ot hear it beep but not speak.

Are you by any chance running Windows 10 1809? First versions of this
build had exactly the issue you're describing under Virtual Box. I've
reported this both to Oracle (https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/17942)
and to Microsoft Accessibility team. The latter report resulted in this
issue being corrected with an update but unfortunately if you've
installed from the image without the appropriate CU integrated you need
to fix it manually. To do so it is necessary to open your sound settings
and ensure your sound card is set to Stereo rather than to 5.1 which the
audio card emulated by Virtual Box fails to handle well.


--
Regards
Lukasz

Dear Lukasz,

I am so grateful that you paid attention to my message and took the time
to respond to it! Thank you so much!

I will quote your message and do bottom-posting, I hope you don't mind
but let me know if you do and I will use a different approach.

Lukasz Golonka via groups.io (2021/07/29 21:54 +0200):

Are you by any chance running Windows 10 1809?

I don't know. Is there a way to figure that out without sighted
assistance when no screen reader works? Otherwise I will have to wait
until a colleague of mine can help me on that.

First versions of this
build had exactly the issue you're describing under Virtual Box. I've
reported this both to Oracle (https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/17942)
and to Microsoft Accessibility team.

It's nice that you did the reports! Thanks! I feel dumb for not having
found them, actually!

The latter report resulted in this
issue being corrected with an update but unfortunately if you've
installed from the image without the appropriate CU

What do you mean by CU, exactly? I'm not familiar with the terminology,
sorry.

integrated you need
to fix it manually. To do so it is necessary to open your sound settings
and ensure your sound card is set to Stereo rather than to 5.1 which the
audio card emulated by Virtual Box fails to handle well.

Just to make sure. When you talk about the sound settings, do you mean
on the Windows side?

Many thanks, again, for the invaluable information you provided!

Best wishes,

Sébastien.

On Thu, 29 Jul 2021 22:45:21 +0200
Sébastien Hinderer <Sebastien.Hinderer@...> wrote:

Lukasz Golonka via groups.io (2021/07/29 21:54 +0200):

Are you by any chance running Windows 10 1809?

I don't know. Is there a way to figure that out without sighted
assistance when no screen reader works? Otherwise I will have to wait
until a colleague of mine can help me on that.

Possible probably yes but not easy. If you have easy access to the
sighted assistant that would be your best bed

First versions of this
build had exactly the issue you're describing under Virtual Box. I've
reported this both to Oracle (https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/17942)
and to Microsoft Accessibility team.

It's nice that you did the reports! Thanks! I feel dumb for not having
found them, actually!

I don't think they would come up in the searches - certainly the one to
Microsoft has been done via twitter and using private messages.

The latter report resulted in this
issue being corrected with an update but unfortunately if you've
installed from the image without the appropriate CU

What do you mean by CU, exactly? I'm not familiar with the terminology,
sorry.

CU -> Cumulative update

integrated you need
to fix it manually. To do so it is necessary to open your sound settings
and ensure your sound card is set to Stereo rather than to 5.1 which the
audio card emulated by Virtual Box fails to handle well.

Just to make sure. When you talk about the sound settings, do you mean
on the Windows side?

Yes, this change needs to be done on the system inside your VM.

On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 04:45 PM, Sébastien Hinderer wrote:

What do you mean by CU, exactly?

-
I'm not Lukasz, but this, in context, means Cumulative Update.

If you have no screen reader output then it's quite difficult to get version and build information since you can't see it.  Normally you'd just run the winver command and listen to the information in the resulting dialog box.

If, by some chance, you somehow have Windows 10 Version 1809 running, you need to get a far more recent version and re-create your VM using it.  I'd go no earlier than Version 20H2 and, ideally, just use the current version, 21H1.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H1, Build 19043  

Yep.  Discipline.  Accountability.  Joy.  Fun.  Responsibility.

That's what life is about.  And in that order.

        ~ Liza Minnelli

 

Sorry, Lukasz. We were literally typing our responses at the same time, and you beat me by 2 minutes in posting yours.
--

Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H1, Build 19043  

Yep.  Discipline.  Accountability.  Joy.  Fun.  Responsibility.

That's what life is about.  And in that order.

        ~ Liza Minnelli