Web App Bot - .NET Text to Speech not working

Question

Working with the Azure Web App Bot SDK v3. I try to output text and speech at the same time.

        messageActivity.Text = information;
        messageActivity.Speak = information;
        messageActivity.Locale = "de-DE";

        await context.PostAsync(messageActivity);

Cortana nor Direct Line nor the Bot emulator does speak something out. However, the Bot does receive the text to speak out loud.

In addition, even

await context.SayAsync(information, information);

isn't working. I seems like there is an issue with the localization or something. I ran out of ideas.

Direct line is configured as following

  const speechOptions = {
    speechRecognizer: new CognitiveServices.SpeechRecognizer({ subscriptionKey: 'SUB_KEY_XXX', locale: 'de-DE' }),
    speechSynthesizer: new CognitiveServices.SpeechSynthesizer({
      gender: CognitiveServices.SynthesisGender.Male,
      subscriptionKey: 'SUB_KEY_AGAIN',
      voiceName: 'Microsoft Server Speech Text to Speech Voice (de-DE, Michael)'
    })
  };

Sidenote: Voice to text works flawlessly.

EDIT: Direct Line does work now. While I was using a iFrame for demonstration purposes, the voice output only works if the input also was provided via voice input. However, you can change that behaviour as well.

Answer 1

You should try a well formed SSML wrapper if you want the informationText to speak in Cortana.

msg.speak = "<speak version=\"1.0\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis\" xml:lang=\"de-DE\"> <voice languages=\"de-DE\"  gender=\"male\"> Haben Sie Wien schon bei Nacht gesehen? </voice><voice languages=\"de-DE it\"  gender=\"female\"> Nein. </voice></speak>

Also note that Cortana only officially supports en-US for locale and market for third party skills. Though you can do a lot of cool things with other voices and locales, there are a few quirks and you can run into issues.