Which device is this with?

It sounds a bit like one of the audio objects you are using could be changing the audio session, which isn’t compatible with using PocketsphinxController at the same time. Can you show the code where you create the AVSpeechSynthesizer and AVAudioPlayer objects, and also your output from verbosePocketsphinx and OpenEarsLogging?

Another question I would have is how you are handling the suspend/resume in order to make sure that the TTS isn’t being heard and analyzed by PocketsphinxController (i.e. what are the events you are using to decide when it’s safe to suspend and to resume?). Are you 100% sure that recognition isn’t in progress at the same time that your app is playing sounds through the speaker?

- (void) pocketsphinxDidReceiveHypothesis:(NSString *)hypothesis recognitionScore:(NSString *)recognitionScore utteranceID:(NSString *)utteranceID {
    NSLog(@"The received hypothesis is %@ with a score of %@ and an ID of %@", hypothesis, recognitionScore, utteranceID);
    
    if ([hypothesis isEqualToString:@"HELP"])  {
        [self slotHelp:self];
    }
    if ([hypothesis isEqualToString:@"BET"]) {
        [self slotBet:self];
    }
    if ([hypothesis isEqualToString:@"SPIN"]) {
        [self slotSpin:self];
    }
    if ([hypothesis isEqualToString:@"BALANCE"]) {
        [self slotScore:self];
    }
}

During each event there is speech from both TTS and audioPlayer. I use this conditional to test when there is no speech at the beginning of each event but am not sure where to suspend and resume:

if (self.synthesizer.speaking == NO && ![audioPlayer1 isPlaying] && ![audioPlayer2 isPlaying] && ![audioPlayer3 isPlaying] && ![audioPlayer4 isPlaying]) {
// no speech currently
}

I thought I could suspend recognition after this conditional and let the event take place but I am not sure where or how to resume recognition after the speech is completed.

Thanks so much for your patience and help. I am hoping to develop several apps using OpenEars for people who are visually challenged. OpenEars is a vital part of my vision. Again thanks for your help.

The way this normally works structurally is that you have control over the moment that you begin the playback of some other sound, so you will suspend right before sending that message. i.e. before you send the message [self.myAudioPlayer play], you will first send the message [self.pocketsphinxController suspendRecognition] so that you know that listening isn’t happening when you start your audio object playing back. This is pretty straightforward because both of these events are under your active control.

Resume is only a bit more complex, because unlike the first case where you are actively saying, or more specifically messaging, “play the audio stuff now/start the speech now”, you have to wait for a callback of some kind to indicate to you that the audio or speech is complete because you don’t control the moment of its completion — the audio or speech object controls that.

When we talk about callbacks we’re basically talking about code which we have to passively wait to inform us that something important happened rather than making it happen ourselves with an active message to an object. You can imagine that you made a phone call to the audio player object and left a message saying “play the audio file, and please call me back once you’ve finished playing it so I can decide what to do next” and that is what is going to happen: instead of you making a second phone call to the audio player and saying “be done with the audio file now”, you are receiving a phone call that says “I’m done with the audio file”.

In Objective-C callbacks take the form of delegate methods: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1045803/how-does-a-delegate-work-in-objective-c

Very briefly, a delegate method is a method that is called on behalf of some other object, or in this case, very specifically, it is a method that you can implement in your view controller, by making your view controller a delegate of your audio object, in order to know when the audio object is done playing back. Here is a Stack Overflow question that is specifically about implementing the AVAudioPlayer delegate method – (void)audioPlayerDidFinishPlaying:(AVAudioPlayer *)player successfully:(BOOL)flag which tells you when playback is complete:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8343402/avaudioplayer-delegate-wont-get-called-in-a-class-method

This will be structurally similar with the TTS methods. Once you have a working callback for knowing when speech or audio is finished, you also have a place to confidently put the resumeRecognition call.

Again I cannot express my gratitude enough for your patience and explanation. I feel I have learned so much. I want to continue using OpenEars in other apps I hope to develop. Thanks again, I will be back in touch with the results.

The third BET and the last BALANCE were both recognitions that were not spoken. Any ideas or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

When you get the crash, while the program is still attached in the debugging console (i.e. you can see the prompt “lldb” in blue), can you type “bt” into that prompt and show the results?