Python pocketsphinx RequestError: missing PocketSphinx module: ensure that PocketSphinx is set up correctly

Question

I am trying to make a Python app that can record audio and translate it into english text using PyAudio, SpeechRecognition and PocketSphinx. I'm running on a Mac OS X El Capitan, version 10.11.2.

Following a tutorial like this one and others, I've downloaded PyAudio version 0.2.9, SpeechRecognition as well as PocketSphinx. I've installed them into a Conda environment. I have followed the instructions from this site to use brew install swig git python on my OS X, hoping it would help.

This is my code:

# Load packages
import speech_recognition as sr
import sphinxbase
import pocketsphinx

# obtain audio from the microphone
r = sr.Recognizer()
with sr.Microphone() as source:
    print("Say something!")
    audio = r.listen(source)

# write audio to a WAV file
with open("microphone-results.wav", "wb") as f:
    f.write(audio.get_wav_data())

So far things are working great. I can record and play back my WAV file no problems. But here is where things go wrong...

r = sr.Recognizer()
with sr.AudioFile('microphone-results.wav') as source:
    audio = r.record(source) # read the entire audio file

try:
    print("You said " +  r.recognize_sphinx(audio))
except LookupError:         # speech is unintelligible
    print("Could not understand audio")

When I run this code I get: RequestError: missing PocketSphinx module: ensure that PocketSphinx is set up correctly.

I have installed PocketSphinx and Sphinxbase both globally and in virtual conda envs but to no avail. Documentation on this error on Google / SO posts is close to zero so I'm not sure what is going on. Any help/ advice would be greatly appreciated.

Here is a list of my installed packages and their versions for my conda virtual environment:

# packages in environment at /Users/nathancheever/anaconda/envs/audio_2:
#
appnope                   0.1.0                    py27_0
backports-abc             0.4                       <pip>
backports.ssl-match-hostname 3.4.0.2                   <pip>
backports_abc             0.4                      py27_0
decorator                 4.0.9                    py27_0
freetype                  2.5.5                         0
ipykernel                 4.3.1                    py27_0
ipython                   4.1.2                    py27_2
ipython-genutils          0.1.0                     <pip>
ipython_genutils          0.1.0                    py27_0
ipywidgets                4.1.1                    py27_0
jinja2                    2.8                      py27_0
jsonschema                2.4.0                    py27_0
jupyter                   1.0.0                    py27_2
jupyter-client            4.2.2                     <pip>
jupyter-console           4.1.1                     <pip>
jupyter-core              4.1.0                     <pip>
jupyter_client            4.2.2                    py27_0
jupyter_console           4.1.1                    py27_0
jupyter_core              4.1.0                    py27_0
libpng                    1.6.17                        0
markupsafe                0.23                     py27_0
mistune                   0.7.2                    py27_1
nbconvert                 4.1.0                    py27_0
nbformat                  4.0.1                    py27_0
notebook                  4.1.0                    py27_2
openssl                   1.0.2g                        0
path.py                   8.1.2                    py27_1
pexpect                   4.0.1                    py27_0
pickleshare               0.5                      py27_0
pip                       8.1.1                    py27_1
ptyprocess                0.5                      py27_0
pyaudio                   0.2.9                     <pip>
pygments                  2.1.3                    py27_0
pyqt                      4.11.4                   py27_1
python                    2.7.11                        0
pyzmq                     15.2.0                   py27_0
qt                        4.8.7                         1
qtconsole                 4.2.1                    py27_0
readline                  6.2                           2
setuptools                20.6.7                   py27_0
simplegeneric             0.8.1                    py27_0
singledispatch            3.4.0.3                  py27_0
sip                       4.16.9                   py27_0
six                       1.10.0                   py27_0
speechrecognition         3.4.2                     <pip>
sphinxbase                0.8                       <pip>
sqlite                    3.9.2                         0
ssl_match_hostname        3.4.0.2                  py27_0
terminado                 0.5                      py27_1
tk                        8.5.18                        0
tornado                   4.3                      py27_0
traitlets                 4.2.1                    py27_0
wheel                     0.29.0                   py27_0
zlib                      1.2.8                         0

Message says it all, you need to remove old sphinxbase and install pocketsphinx package. — Nikolay Shmyrev, Apr 11 '16 at 16:34

score 18 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 23 '16 at 14:39

18

You will need these libraries for compiling pocketsphinx:

sudo apt-get install -qq python python-dev python-pip build-essential swig libpulse-dev

After that it's simple to install pocketsphinx:

sudo pip install pocketsphinx

edited Nov 23 '16 at 14:39

smottt

3,272
11
37
44

answered Nov 23 '16 at 14:35

Alaa BEN JABALLAH

196
1
3

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 06 '16 at 15:13

11

as @Nikolay Shmyrev mentioned, you can simply

pip install pocketsphinx

to solve the issue

answered Nov 06 '16 at 15:13

James

320
2
8

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 13 '18 at 23:41

I was trying to do the same thing and had trouble with

# Make sure we have up-to-date versions of pip, setuptools and wheel:
$ pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel

$ pip install --upgrade pocketsphinx

from the pocketsphinx docs https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pocketsphinx

The error was

error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

I am working on a mac and needed to install the x-code command line tools. From the command line

xcode-select --install

then the pip install worked and

r.recognize_sphinx(audio)

works

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 21 '20 at 20:21

3

Same issue

sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev

solved it.

Python 3.6 Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS

answered Jun 21 '20 at 20:21

juliandeprez

31
1

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 04 '22 at 01:14

I ran into this issue recently. To add an updated clarification on error: command 'swig' failed: No such file or directory and OP original RequestError: missing PocketSphinx module: ensure that PocketSphinx is set up correctly.

I fixed this issue running:

# First I wanted to make sure pip/setuptools/wheel was up to date
$ pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel

# then installing swig
$ sudo apt-get install swig

# and finally to ensure most recent release of PocketSphinx
$ pip install --upgrade pocketsphinx

Siddhant Roy · Answer 6 · 2021-06-28T04:55:06.590

I also ran into similar problem. Issue is that pocketsphinx not being installed. But when I tried to install it explicitly it spit out this:

Installing collected packages: pocketsphinx
    Running setup.py install for pocketsphinx ... error
    ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
     command: /usr/bin/python -u -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/tmp/pip-install-54lpsfk9/pocketsphinx_4a1855908d0d459d9da4cb55a9fa821d/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/tmp/pip-install-54lpsfk9/pocketsphinx_4a1855908d0d459d9da4cb55a9fa821d/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' install --record /tmp/pip-record-hun5knqg/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile --install-headers /usr/include/python3.9/pocketsphinx                                                              
         cwd: /tmp/pip-install-54lpsfk9/pocketsphinx_4a1855908d0d459d9da4cb55a9fa821d/                                              
    Complete output (6 lines):                                                                                                      
    running install                                                                                                                 
    running build_ext                                                                                                               
    building 'sphinxbase._sphinxbase' extension                                                                                     
    swigging deps/sphinxbase/swig/sphinxbase.i to deps/sphinxbase/swig/sphinxbase_wrap.c                                            
    swig -python -modern -threads -Ideps/sphinxbase/include -Ideps/sphinxbase/include/sphinxbase -Ideps/sphinxbase/include/android -Ideps/sphinxbase/swig -outdir sphinxbase -o deps/sphinxbase/swig/sphinxbase_wrap.c deps/sphinxbase/swig/sphinxbase.i                
    error: command 'swig' failed: No such file or directory                                                                         
    ----------------------------------------                                                                                        
ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1: /usr/bin/python -u -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/tmp/pip-install-54lpsfk9/pocketsphinx_4a1855908d0d459d9da4cb55a9fa821d/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/tmp/pip-install-54lpsfk9/pocketsphinx_4a1855908d0d459d9da4cb55a9fa821d/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' install --record /tmp/pip-record-hun5knqg/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile --install-headers /usr/include/python3.9/pocketsphinx Check the logs for full command output.

Going through the error found this: error: command 'swig' failed: No such file or directory and tracing a bit backwards found that it is used for building some package extension; what i can infer is some sphinxbase extension. Basically, installing swig solved the issue for me.

Python: 3.9
pocketsphinx: 0.1.15
speechrecognition: 3.8.1
setuptools: 57.0.0
swig: 4.0.2-2
OS: Manjaro Linux

If these matters.

The error message you got is not as important, in an answer, as _how_ you solved the problem. Please provide the install commands that helped you solve the problem. All you said was that you "installed swig". Please be more detailed. Also, though the specific version numbers might be of minor importance, they don't really matter; you can removed them. See [answer] for more information. — Sylvester Kruin, Nov 09 '21 at 17:04

Python pocketsphinx RequestError: missing PocketSphinx module: ensure that PocketSphinx is set up correctly

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