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AudioGames.net Forum → Off-topic room → Broken TTS Configuration
Hello,
I'm having troubles in the "Change text to speech settings" option in the control panel. When entering that option, the voice selection combo box is empty and the test text is 'custom1'.
Can anyone help? Thank you!
Note: I've been using BlindExtra for a while. Can it be the reason of my broken TTS configuration?
Hello Storm.
I do not know but I am documentating.
If you removed any voice that you have downloaded form ivona or acapella, that might be the reason. Re-install the voices.
hi,
If you used an acapela voice and enabled sapi, please try clicking enable sapi from the addon's menu again.
Thanks
or, kindly ask ahmedStar to repair sapi for you...
I recommend that you remove Blind Extra. See this post for more details: http://addons.nvda-project.org/addons/b … zh_CN.html
Figured there was something fishy about that addon. The fact it allowed free vocalizer made it sound too good to be true, while still a nice idea. As for the acapella, I think that's just a ripped infovox3 usb stick. The same thing was hosted on a former site where you manually enabled sapi by running reg.bat. Yeah, I'd remove blind extra immediately.
Hello.
I wanted blind extra but now I do not want.
This is the badest addon.
Sorry for my english.
Well, it would actually be a pretty nice addon. Without the trojanatic part of it, that is. Not a legal one either way you go, but the one without the trojan horse aspect is the lesser of two evils as far as legality is concerned. Better still, the current copy of the addon should be uninstalled without hesitation.
Yeah, it should. And the fact that the author compiles his batch files is very questionable, and makes me wonder what he's hiding.
And the fact that the addon has a lot of .exe's. Since when does an addon, even a synth addon, require that many executables? Even code factory's addon only rapped around their standard configuration utility! Not to mention the addon plays a logo when installed. Since when does your average nvda addon do that? No doubt there's extra stuff, quite literally, behind the addon.
The compiled batch files open the download pages for voices. I think there's only a start command in every one of them.
You never know. The batches are compiled, so what they could be doing may be behind the scenes. There is readable code in the addon, though, otherwise how else would the evidence be found?
It's never been confirmed by hard evidence, but here are all the peaces we know:
1. Storm installed the addon. Afterwards, he started spamming, sending garbled messages etc. He claims not to have sent them himself, and AhmedStar admitted to having typed some of those messages
2. The addon is detected by some, but not all, antivyrus engines. The type of vyrus has been differing, and I don't know the exact names.
3. It is all compiled, and the fact there is a special tool on AhmedStar's website to remove it, is troubling. It hooks very, very deep into your system, which shouldn't be necessary.
There are probably more, these are just the ones I remember. So is this addon a virus, probably. There's just a tiny chanse that it is not
And no, the code can't be examined, only the code which bridges nvda menu's and switches synths is available, the rest is all closed source. You could disassemble them, but that would take ages, and noone is going to but in that much work just to confirm what most people already believe.
And here is the saddest part. How are you going to remove a virus, that might be undectable by av? If I were Ahmed, I'd make sure I had multiple viruses with multiple startup methods, so it'd be nearly impossible to remove. You can only be truly safe if you download windows media on another pc, create install media with that same pc, turn off your infected pc and boot from usb and do a full reinstall.
Update: Ahmed Star posted on his blog that the virus claim in blind extra was spam, and that there's no virus. Still, the questions of why he compiles his batch files, and has a special removal tool which if I'm not mistaken is probably a compiled version of unreg.bat, still remain.
Unfortunately the only surefire way, if all the registry repair tools don't work, is to reinstall windows.
Hello.
Please give me the link for this addon.
Alright, if you want it, www.stextra.com. Joseph Lee's looking at the sourcecode for a final answer as to whether the addon is a trojan or not. Supposedly, bat2exe counts as a trojan across antivirus programs. That shouldn't happen, but then again why compile the batches anyway? Why not just run them as is, so the antivirus won't keep yelling at you.
I installed blind extra and get extra.
I do not have problems with it.
For me it is a good addon.
The core of the addon consists of exe's, so very time consuming to reverse engineer. And I can't help but think that some people are just missing some common sence.
1. Peace of software gets flagged by antivyrus.
2. Author of addon doesn't include sourcecode, and when asked, says that people would steal his "work" which consists of stolen / copyrighted material of others
3. It asks admin privileges when installing
So just because some questionable software didn't do something terrible to your system outright it is apparently safe? Maybe he just wants to use your machine for other things, hard to tell what. If he doesn't like you he might send random skype messages to people like what he did to storm. Or if he hates you, he may even do more damage. So apparently I am not trusting people enough or a large group of ag members has no common cense. In both cases, a bad thing.
Besides, I just don't get how he would release an addon that allows the downloading of obvious cracked voices, easy as 1 2 3. I mean I get he says he's trying to help, which he might very well be. He says bat2exe is flagged by antivirus programs. Again maybe true. That wouldn't be the only piece of software flagged as a false positive. But then again, why compile the batches anyway? If they're looking for some sort of retained rights to the addon, they're certainly not getting it due to the obvious use of cracked synthesizers. I'm not in any way launching into a hole discussion of the use of the cracks, but the fact that he's doing this so very publicly, on an easy to locate website mind you, gives you pause for thought. And he's not hiding a thing about the synthesizers, it clearly states the purpose on that page, to freely download acapella and vocalizer voices. It's obvious what the thing does. If Joseph gets back to us and in deed it is not a virus at all, I will gladly prove this theory wrong and get rid of any speculation, but for now this is what we have to go by. The only batch files that the addon should require, are reg.bat and unreg.bat, related to Acapella. They should not need to be compiled for any reason whatsoever. Side note, haven't y'all noticed this dev's on the forum, yet he's been silent this whole time as far as this forum is concerned? Hmm. Could he be watching this whole thing unfold? Again, if Joseph comes back with a report that this whole trojan thing was bogus, I will gladly step back on all of this. But until then, this is where it stands.
I would never install an addon of this kind, and not just because it installs cracked software. As a programmer, I enjoy being able to examine the source code of NVDA addons before I install them, so the fact that the core of this addon is made up of binaries is highly suspicious. Another one of those things that just boggles the mind. Generally, if it sounds too good to be true, then it is.
Good point, Jason. An addon that makes it this easy to install vocalizer and acapella voices, inside an oh so convenient user interface mind you, is probably too good to be true. There's probably an altogether different agenda involved. Let's put myself in this guy's situation. If I was programming this and my only motive was to help users by giving them an easy way to download voices, I'd be clever about it and be as anonymous as possible, releasing it with a figure it out for yourself kind of attitude to a select few groups, groups that were kind of self-run if you will. Free for alls, should we say. This guy, on the other hand, went out on a lim, posting this addon publicly, on a site for all to see, www.stextra.com. How could this not give people pause for thought about the true motive of this addon? This and the fact that the core of the addon has an abnormal amount of compiled batches?
Alright folks, after Joseph Lee had a look, we've got some hard evidence. You ready? Alright, here we go. The addon has numerous security holes which will be described, but let's get one thing straight. This whole thing does not use Nvda's core api, at all. The addon, if it can even be called that, uses urllib/urlib2/webbrowser to download some files, presumably the voice data, but not before making sure to delete the Python source for the addon. As we knew before, it has some odd compiled batch scripts and *some* readable python code. And to top it all, it does not use proper l10n methods and reads like a rough transcription from another language. Could it just be exe's that are running the voices, and it isn't going through nvda's speech module at all? Well in short, this so-called addon is nothing short of a collection of programs, not in any way communicating to nvda. How do you know it's a program? It has a whole damn gui loop! Granted some addons have dialogues, look at ntm for example, and addons like that have *one* executable to launch. But this addon? Completely unpythonic, goes way beyond an nvda addon into who knows what. I would go with what's been said and never trust this thing.
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