Running processes left after disabling screen reader

[Wise Melon]

After I disabled my screen reader, I noticed that when running "ps xa | grep -P 'speech-dispatcher.*\.conf'" I get:

    17906 tty2 Sl+ 0:09 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_espeak /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/espeak.conf
    17911 tty2 Sl+ 0:01 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_cicero /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/cicero.conf
    17915 tty2 Sl+ 0:01 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_generic /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/generic.conf
    17918 tty2 Sl+ 0:01 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_dummy /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/dummy.conf
    24407 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep --color=auto -P speech-dispatcher.*\.conf

So it seems as though it left some running processes behind after I disabled it. I have also attached a screenshot of my Sound settings which show that they are still running (Sound_Application_List2.png).

---

OS Information:

    No LSB modules are available.
    Distributor ID: Ubuntu
    Description: Ubuntu 15.04
    Release: 15.04
    Codename: vivid

Package Information:

    speech-dispatcher:
      Installed: 0.8.1-0ubuntu1
      Candidate: 0.8.1-0ubuntu1
      Version table:
     *** 0.8.1-0ubuntu1 0
            500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid/main amd64 Packages
            100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: speech-dispatcher 0.8.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-28.30-generic 3.19.8-ckt5
Uname: Linux 3.19.0-28-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.17.2-0ubuntu1.4
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Wed Sep 16 20:27:00 2015
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-07-29 (49 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Release amd64 (20150422)
SourcePackage: speech-dispatcher
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Luke Yelavich (themuso)]

 affects ubuntu/speech-dispatcher
 status triaged

This is a known issue, and requires a bit of code refactoring. This work
has been started upstream, but is not yet released.

Luke

[Travis Hurst (doubledogdare610)]

I have encountered a very similar problem. I had never used the screen reader. I'm guessing that something had glitched in my system. But I had heard a random sound while using my system and I checked the running processes and I had found these processes running. Is there a related bug anywhere?

[Nicholas Christian Langkjær Ipsen (ncli)]

I have the same problem as Travis. Never used the screen reader, then this suddenly spawned four instances and started spouting gibberish.

[Dani (damufo)]

Hello:

Same problem on xubuntu 16.04

$ ps xa | grep -P 'speech-dispatcher.*\.conf'
22217 ? Sl 0:02 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_cicero /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/cicero.conf
22221 ? Sl 0:02 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_generic /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/generic.conf
22224 ? Sl 0:03 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_espeak /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/espeak.conf
22229 ? Sl 0:02 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_dummy /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/dummy.conf
27986 pts/2 S+ 0:00 grep --color=auto -P speech-dispatcher.*\.conf

Never used the screen reader.

[Tommy Trussell (tommy-trussell)]

I, too, never used the screen reader, but have been experiencing the "phantom" speech-dispatcher processes. I notice them especially because they seem to interfere with other sounds that are playing (modifying the other sound with a "fuzzy" sound effect).

I have found that opening one or more web sites apparently starts the speech-dispatcher processes. Facebook may be one of the sites. Today I had opened a link from Facebook to a video on Mashable and the speech-dispatcher started sometime in the middle of the video. HOWEVER when I opened those two sites separately, the speech-dispatcher did not start. I suppose it may be some advertising on Facebook or Mashable triggering it.

The speech-dispatcher processes are easy to see using pavucontrol / "Pulse Audio Volume Control" on the Playback tab, and in fact just making pavucontrol active often eliminates the "fuzzy" sound.

[Shuhao (shuhao)]

Do we know what's launching the process? It's not systemd as I checked. There should be a workaround, no?

I'm going to try to set /usr/bin/speech-dispatcher and the binaries under /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules with chmod -x to see what happens.

[Alex ARNAUD (alexarnaud)]

Hello all,

What's described here is not a bug but the old behavior of speech-dispatcher.

Orca is a screen reader, the speech output uses speech-dispatcher. speech-dispatcher is a daemon that run in background.

In the new release like 16.04 or newer speech-dispatcher stops when there is no client connected to it.

Best regards.

[Joshua Rocky Tuahta Purba (jrocky)]

This bug also happens in Ubuntu Budgie 17.10. To be clear, my Screen Reader setting in the Universal Access application is Off.

[Ricky Brent (rickybrent)]

I ran into this on 18.04 -- also with Screen Reader set to off.

[Selwyn (siilwyn-deactivatedaccount)]

This issue persists in Ubuntu 19.04.

Thought something went wrong with my system when I suddenly saw four cryptic names in my sound settings:
- speech-dispatcher-dummy
- speech-dispatcher-espeak-ng
- speech-dispatcher-generic
- speech-dispatcher-generic

[PauricTheLodger (ptl)]

Howdy, also seeing speech-dispatcher running on 19.10. Some anecdotal info is that I restarted and tried enabling and then disabling Screen Reader on the login screen and it hasn't appeared in my sessions today since, including a few more restarts.

[Jeroen Hoek (mail-jeroenhoek)]

The issue of these speech-dispatcher processes spawning for some unknown reason and distorting sound (as mentioned above a few users) is still present in 22.04 for me.