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The Microsoft edge "natural" voices are not working on the read aloud feature.

Anonymous
2023-02-18T00:23:03+00:00

I am a student and use the read aloud feature on MS edge a lot, but just today None of the better, more realistic "natural" cloud supported voices are working, and only the basic robotic ones are. I can still see the voices in the list, and i can still select them, but when I try to use them and press play, no sound comes out and nothing is highlighted on the screen, whereas normally the words would be highlighted as they were read aloud. After a few seconds it seems like MS edge stops trying and the play button goes back into its old stopped position. Sometimes it lets me try again, sometimes I just press play and nothing happens. In the past, I've had situations where the natural voices don't appear on the list, and usually that's because my laptop isn't connected to wifi, but I have checked this on multiple networks and the problem persists.

What I have already tried:

I've reset MS Edge and used the "repair" feature, since I can't uninstall and reinstall on my laptop (feature is disabled for some reason).

I've switched Wifi networks.

I've searched in the Languages section in the settings but couldn't find anything that would help me, I already have the English language pack.

I've gone into the settings and enabled the experimental "new pdf reader" feature.

I've reset my laptop

I don't know what else to do. I need text to speech badly for school and this was by far the most efficient, without it my academic progress could suffer. Any help would be appreciated.

Microsoft Edge | Read PDFs | Windows 10

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-02-23T00:12:44+00:00

    I had this happen to me too. Read Aloud works with the Local voices (David, Mark, ZIra) but not the online "Natural" voices. For me, the fix was going through all the extensions, turning the all off, and then on one by one. Turned out to be the Duck Duck Go privacy extension. Now I have to weigh good voices vs private searching.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-02-22T02:24:12+00:00

    Could you be specific about the problem you're experiencing, such as whether there were any errors when you right-click on the Edge blank and click "Read aloud"? If yes, please describe it in detail or send me a screenshot/photo in the next reply to help me understand your situation better.

    If you have a similar voice plugin installed in the Edge browser, you can temporarily disable the plugin. Or you can disable all plugins to confirm that the feature is working. Type "edge://extensions/" in the Edge browser address bar, press Enter to open Edge browser plug-in management interface.

    Or you can clean up the Edge browser cache. Type "edge://settings/clearBrowserData" in the Edge browser address bar, press Enter to open the clear browser data page, then check the data you want to clear, click "Clear Now", and restart the browser.

    Disclaimer*: Your browser automatically saves temporary internet files to help pages load faster. Clearing this cache will sometimes fix page display problems.* Please back up all your personal files first, such as Favorites, to ensure you do not lose data.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-02-20T18:52:22+00:00

    110.0.1587.50

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-02-20T18:49:26+00:00

    This happened to me; I tried resetting the browser settings, removing the chance and a bunch of other things, it seems to be a local machine issue. I lost out on 3 days of reading so far. I hope they fixed it soon, it is necessity now, I don't think I am able to read books regularly anymore.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-02-18T07:58:51+00:00

    Hello Landon E,

    Good to see you in Microsoft Community.

    Firstly, could you let me know the specific version info of the system and the Microsoft Edge browser? Please check it and only send the relevant information without PII in the next reply.

    • System version Win +R key, and type "winver", press Enter.
    • Microsoft Edge browser version Type "edge://settings/help" in the Edge address bar and press Enter*.*

    Is this your personal computer or it belongs to the school?

    • If it is the latter, you may contact its IT department to help you solve it, as each unit has its own unique security policy (maybe it was changed recently) to secure the domain environment, that may cause your current trouble and we cannot provide further technical support for this. Tips*: You can see if* Read aloud works in the Microsoft Edge browser on other computers in the same network environment, so you can further confirm whether it's an issue with your current computer itself or a problem at scale below that network.
    • If it is your personal computer, follow the steps below.

    Did this happen on all pages? Or was there only a specific website or file? Or you may try the InPrivate mode of the Microsoft Edge browser's (Ctrl + Shift + N for shortcut).

    Update Microsoft Edge browser. Win +R key, and type "winver", press Enter, that will check for Edge updates and install it automatically.

    Or you cancreate a new local Edge user profileand switch to that new account to see if Collection is working. Visit Sign in and create multiple profiles in Microsoft Edge - Microsoft Support for more details.

    If anything is unclear, please do not hesitate to let me know.

    Best Regards,

    Mosken_L - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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