Python SpeechRecognition Error ALSA

Question

[EDIT] PyAudio is not working, and the program does not do any speech recognition at all.

I'm running Ubuntu on a virtual machine and I made a short script. It uses SpeechRecognition 3.5.0 to detect what a user says. I have pyaudio installed but when I run the script I get a long error. I'm using a build in microphone on my laptop.

import wolframalpha
import os
from gtts import gTTS
import speech_recognition as sr
r = sr.Recognizer()
with sr.Microphone() as source:              
    audio = r.listen(source) 
print("You said " + r.recognize(audio)) 
app_id = ("H34HDS-SDFJKOEER2")
client = wolframalpha.Client(app_id)
while app_id == "H34HDS-SDFJKOEER2":
    input = raw_input("Question: ")
    res = client.query(input)
    answer = next(res.results).text
    tts = gTTS(text=answer, lang='en')
    tts.save("hello.mp3")
    os.system("mpg321 hello.mp3")

The error that I'm getting is:

ALSA lib pcm_dsnoop.c:606:(snd_pcm_dsnoop_open) unable to open slave
ALSA lib setup.c:548:(add_elem) Cannot obtain info for CTL elem (MIXER,'AC97 2ch->4ch Copy Switch',0,0,0): No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.center_lfe
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.side
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround21
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround21
ALSA lib setup.c:548:(add_elem) Cannot obtain info for CTL elem (MIXER,'AC97 2ch->4ch Copy Switch',0,0,0): No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround41
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround50
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround51
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.surround71
ALSA lib setup.c:548:(add_elem) Cannot obtain info for CTL elem (PCM,'IEC958 Playback PCM Stream',0,0,0): No such file or directory
ALSA lib setup.c:548:(add_elem) Cannot obtain info for CTL elem (PCM,'IEC958 Playback PCM Stream',0,0,0): No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.hdmi
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.hdmi
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.modem
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.modem
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.phoneline
ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.phoneline
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server request channel
jack server is not running or cannot be started
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock
JackShmReadWritePtr::~JackShmReadWritePtr - Init not done for -1, skipping unlock

Answer 1

I've provided the answer from their page. Basically you don't have the jack audio server running. As someone who has had to muck with Linux audio, I can tell you it can be a pain.

From https://pypi.python.org/pypi/SpeechRecognition/

On Ubuntu/Debian, I get errors like “jack server is not running or cannot be started” or “Cannot lock down […] byte memory area (Cannot allocate memory)”.

The Linux audio stack is pretty fickle. There are a few things that can cause these issues.

First, make sure JACK is installed - to install it, run sudo apt-get install multimedia-jack

You will then want to configure the JACK daemon correctly to avoid that “Cannot allocate memory” error. Run sudo dpkg-reconfigure -p high jackd2 and select “Yes” to do so.

Now, you will want to make sure your current user is in the audio group. You can add your current user to this group by running sudo adduser $(whoami) audio.

Unfortunately, these changes will require you to reboot before they take effect.

After rebooting, run pulseaudio --kill, followed by jack_control start, to fix the “jack server is not running or cannot be started” error