Microsoft Cognitive Services Voise to text doesn't work on uploaded to Azure website

Question

I'm using Azure AI services to recognize speach and convert it into text with .Net

SpeechConfig speechConfig = SpeechConfig.FromSubscription(subscriptionKey, region);
            SpeechRecognitionResult result;
            using (SpeechRecognizer recognizer = new(speechConfig))
            {
                // Actively listen to the system microphone and wait for speaking to stop
                result = await recognizer.RecognizeOnceAsync();
                switch (result.Reason)
                {
                    case ResultReason.RecognizedSpeech:
                        // We were able to understand the user
                        return Json(new { result = result.Text }); 
                 ...

It works fine on localhost, but after website was posted on Azure portal it stoped working and all users getting an error:

Exception with an error code: 0xe (SPXERR_MIC_NOT_AVAILABLE)

Answer 1

The error shows that the mic is not recognized or not detected by the speech recognition system or accessible in the hosted environment on Azure.

Azure web apps (and other cloud environments) do not have access to physical hardware like microphones. The error suggests that the application is trying to access a microphone on the server, which is not possible.

So instead of performing speech recognition on the server, consider moving the speech recognition functionality to the client-side using JavaScript. You can use the Web Speech API or Azure's Cognitive Services SDK for JavaScript to handle speech recognition in the browser.