PyAudio prints ALSA warnings and does not work

Question

I am trying to run a basic python speech to text code. This is the code.

import speech_recognition as sr
r = sr.Recognizer()
with sr.Microphone() as source:                
audio = r.listen(source)                   

try:
   print("You said " + r.recognize(audio))     
except LookupError:                            
   print("Could not understand audio")

The code works fine until it reaches the print stage, then it throws this error. Is there anything that I have done wrong?

ALSA lib pcm.c:2266:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.rear
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_route.c:867:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
ALSA lib pcm_route.c:867:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
ALSA lib pcm_route.c:867:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map
ALSA lib pcm_route.c:867:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map

i couldnt make anything out of it so i thought it was an error message and sorry i dint know that since i am very new to them — Charan Karthikeyan, Feb 28 '17 at 11:30
Possible duplicate of [PyAudio working, but spits out error messages each time](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7088672/pyaudio-working-but-spits-out-error-messages-each-time) — Nikolay Shmyrev, Feb 28 '17 at 14:24
Thanks man that worked like a charm even though I'm unable to remove the last 4 lines — Charan Karthikeyan, Mar 01 '17 at 10:16
Related https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15182336/pyaudio-does-not-work-and-bricks-sound-on-ubuntu — Nikolay Shmyrev, Jun 18 '17 at 08:36

score 11 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 07 '17 at 07:24

if someone is still looking for getting rid of

ALSA lib pcm_route.c:867:(find_matching_chmap) Found no matching channel map

I just commented out all pcm.surround* lines in "PCM interface" section in

/usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf

file and it works fine for me.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 28 '17 at 09:32

1

It seems that you have multiple audio input sources, and the first one is not supported by the speech-recognition library. There is another possibility that you have no audio inputs at all.

Try different indexes (e.g. 0, 1, 2, etc) with sr.Microphone(...) as per example below:

with sr.Microphone(device_index=0) as source:

But first, it's a good idea to run cat /proc/asound/card to see what audio devices you've got.

answered Feb 28 '17 at 09:32

zmechanic

1,842
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27

1

the "cat /proc/asound/card" returns as no such directory found – Charan Karthikeyan Feb 28 '17 at 11:54
"OSError: [Errno -9998] Invalid number of channels" if i give the device index as more than 0, and returns the same statements as above when I give the device_index value as 0 – Charan Karthikeyan Feb 28 '17 at 11:58
1

Sorry, that must be `cat /proc/asound/cards`. Have no Linux at this moment. Have a look at this article: http://alsa.opensrc.org/Proc_asound_documentation – zmechanic Feb 28 '17 at 13:21
Just realized that you would like to get rid off error messages. See this post for your problem http://stackoverflow.com/a/13453192/1786034 – zmechanic Feb 28 '17 at 13:31
Hmmm it works for the pcm.c errors but i cant remove the other four lines(last 4). – Charan Karthikeyan Mar 01 '17 at 10:17
I recommend you to read this: https://github.com/Uberi/speech_recognition/issues/27 – zmechanic Mar 01 '17 at 11:32

PyAudio prints ALSA warnings and does not work

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