My app is getting an AccessViolationException when calling the default constructor of the Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.SpeechSynthesizer class. This only happens on one particular machine (so far at least), which is a Surface Pro 3 running Windows 8.1. All other machines with the app installed do not experience this issue.
My code is something like this:
class Speech
{
private Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.SpeechSynthesizer _Synthesizer;
public Speech()
{
SetVoice();
}
private void SetVoice()
{
try
{
// Exception is raised here
_Synthesizer = new Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.SpeechSynthesizer();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
}
}
}
The stack trace that shows up in the Event Logs looks like this:
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception
Exception Info: System.AccessViolationException
Stack:
at Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.SpeechSynthesizer..ctor()
at ... Speech.SetVoice()
at ... Speech..ctor()
I captured a dump file using ProcDump and can see this in the stacktrace (it doesn't show "my code" just the code after it):
sapi.dll!CSpObjectTokenEnumBuilder::CheckTokenSignature(struct ISpDataKey *) Unknown
sapi.dll!CSpObjectTokenEnumBuilder::AddTokensFromDataKey(struct ISpDataKey *,unsigned short const *,unsigned short const *) Unknown
sapi.dll!CSpObjectTokenCategory::InternalEnumTokens(unsigned short const *,unsigned short const *,struct IEnumSpObjectTokens * *,int) Unknown
sapi.dll!CSpObjectTokenCategory::EnumTokens(unsigned short const *,unsigned short const *,struct IEnumSpObjectTokens * *) Unknown
Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.dll!SpEnumTokens(unsigned short const *,unsigned short const *,unsigned short const *,struct IEnumSpObjectTokens * *) Unknown
Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.dll!Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::InstalledVoicesStatic::get_AllVoices(struct Windows::Foundation::Collections::IVectorView<class Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::VoiceInformation *> * *) Unknown
Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.dll!Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::InstalledVoicesStatic::get_DefaultVoiceWithRank(struct Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::IVoiceInformation * *,unsigned int *) Unknown
Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.dll!Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::CSpeechSynthesizer::GetDefaultVoice(struct Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::IVoiceInformation * *,unsigned int *) Unknown
Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.dll!Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::CSpeechSynthesizer::CreateSynthesizerObject(void) Unknown
Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.dll!Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::CSpeechSynthesizer::RuntimeClassInitialize(void) Unknown
Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.dll!Microsoft::WRL::Details::MakeAndInitialize<class Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::CSpeechSynthesizer,class Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::CSpeechSynthesizer>(class Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::CSpeechSynthesizer * *) Unknown
Windows.Media.SpeechSynthesis.dll!Windows::Media::SpeechSynthesis::InstalledVoicesStatic::ActivateInstance(struct IInspectable * *) Unknown
Its really weird that the error seems to be escaping the try/catch block. This is only on one customer's machine
Any ideas what is happening?
I believe that your customer has bad data in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Speech\Voices\Tokens, which is where SAPI stores the information about what voices are installed on the system.
Clearly, some keys are present (given that the code is trying to add a token from the registry key), but the values are corrupt, causing the AV in the native code.
Other areas to check (if applicable to your system) would be:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Speech\Voices\TokensHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\WOW6432Node\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Speech\Voices\TokensHKEY_CURRENT_USER\WOW6432Node\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Speech\Voices\Tokens