[GUIDE][WORKAROUND]Enable Google Now Offline Voice on Unsupported Devices

arafsheikh · Nov 30, 2013

Update[12-1-13]: Flashable zip added

There are many Jellybean users(including me) who do not get an option to download offline voice recognition support in Google Search app(see image below).
The only explanation I was able to find was that Google excluded some Jellybean devices to download offline files due to hardware limitations(Source: utter! FAQ)

I don't know what the limitations are but I found a workaround, and here it is!

The Google Search app downloads the offline voice files in /data/data/com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/app_g3_models/<language name>/<offline voice synthesis files here>
To trick Search we just have to place the offline voice files in the directory and set permissions, and you'll have offline voice available on your unsupported device

(See next post for offline voice files download)

arafsheikh · Nov 30, 2013

Downloads & Instructions

Download:

English(US):
Flashable ZIP: Download
Minimum space required in /data partition = 32MB
If you don't have this much space you will get a bootloop, alternatively you can try creating a symlinking.
Non-Flashable archive: Download

Instructions (Only for Non-Flashable archive):

NOTE:
Even after doing everything you won't get the option to download files from the Search app, though all apps utilizing the offline voice recognition will work

(For people who are willing to contribute see next post)

arafsheikh · Nov 30, 2013

To-Do

1) Get more language files
Help me in this, someone please upload offline voice files for other languages
To do this zip the folders present in your phone's /data/data/com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/app_g3_models/<folders here> dir.

2)Make flashable zips for the voice files
Anybody who has time and experience in creating flashable zips can help. Done.

Dovidhalevi · Dec 1, 2013

arafsheikh said:
1) Get more language files
Help me in this, someone please upload offline voice files for other languages
To do this zip the folders present in your phone's /data/data/com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/app_g3_models/<folders here> dir.

2)Make flashable zips for the voice files
Anybody who has time and experience in creating flashable zips can help.

Give us the link!
These files are all very large. I had the old one on sdext and symlinked it to /system/usr/srec/. So now, symlink them to /data/data/com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/app_g3_models/

EDIT:
Running on an Armv6 device which is a main reason why offline speech recognition not available.

First tried synlinking my previous srec/en-US. Rebooted. FC.
Found the Mediafire link, coaxed that into downloading, extracted the placed on /data/sdext2/languages/en-US. Permissions rw rw rw. Symlinked. Rebooted. FC.

BTW, a few weeks ago when first installing the 4.4 UI thread's version, it spontaneously, got to "initializing en-US.," took my voice and got results! Once, just once. Have the sideloaded recent Play version now. For some odd reason, any search (typed in or dictated using Dragon) will FC when the speech language is en-US!! If I set it to Spanish, then English queries work fine.
Note that during the ICS fidgiting days, they said to set permisions 777 (overkill?).

arafsheikh · Dec 1, 2013

Dovidhalevi said:
Give us the link!
These files are all very large. I had the old one on sdext and symlinked it to /system/usr/srec/. So now, symlink them to /data/data/com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox/app_g3_models/

EDIT:
Running on an Armv6 device which is a main reason why offline speech recognition not available.

First tried synlinking my previous srec/en-US. Rebooted. FC.
Found the Mediafire link, coaxed that into downloading, extracted the placed on /data/sdext2/languages/en-US. Permissions rw rw rw. Symlinked. Rebooted. FC.

BTW, a few weeks ago when first installing the 4.4 UI thread's version, it spontaneously, got to "initializing en-US.," took my voice and got results! Once, just once. Have the sideloaded recent Play version now. For some odd reason, any search (typed in or dictated using Dragon) will FC when the speech language is en-US!! If I set it to Spanish, then English queries work fine.
Note that during the ICS fidgiting days, they said to set permisions 777 (overkill?).

Symlinking from SD-Card works fine for me. But changing permissions to 777 doesn't. I can only keep it till 766.
I guess your second issue is caused because search might be confusing eng with spanish for some reasons(maybe the files were interchanged, etc) try deleting app data
Also I have ARMv7 still I don't get the option

mukulsoni · Dec 2, 2013

arafsheikh said:
Symlinking from SD-Card works fine for me. But changing permissions to 777 doesn't. I can only keep it till 766.
I guess your second issue is caused because search might be confusing eng with spanish for some reasons(maybe the files were interchanged, etc) try deleting app data
Also I have ARMv7 still I don't get the option

I am gonna try now

good job :good:

Dovidhalevi · Dec 2, 2013

arafsheikh said:
Symlinking from SD-Card works fine for me. But changing permissions to 777 doesn't. I can only keep it till 766.
I guess your second issue is caused because search might be confusing eng with spanish for some reasons(maybe the files were interchanged, etc) try deleting app data
Also I have ARMv7 still I don't get the option

Spanish was quite arbitrary. Any English variant would FC doing any query. It is not searching in Spanish nor presenting Spanish language output.

Armv6 is the cause of the FCs. The jni.so, included in the Play apk or pushed to /system/lib, is compiled for Armv7 so will FC on a non-Armv7 device. The fact that offline speech did work one time (do not even know how I got there) means that there is some way around this, but ... find it.

What is your locale? Might not present options outside specific locales. Might use Xposed AppSettings module to switch to a supported locale for Google Search.

---------- Post added at 10:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 AM ----------

mukulsoni said:
I am gonna try now good job :good:

Well ... did it work for you? Who knows? Miracles can happen

anonymousthing · Dec 5, 2013

It works for me, but not for Google Now in the way that it should. Offline voice typing works (through the keyboard), tested by just going to SMS and dictating a message using the Voice Typing on Google Keyboard. Worked fine (although a bit off since I have an Australian accent).

Google Search/Now, on the other hand, likes to think that we don't have it installed and thus won't actually let you do anything offline. It keeps complaining that I don't have a connection to Google, but still won't let me do offline functions such as setting timers or starting a stopwatch.

Any ideas?

Dovidhalevi · Dec 5, 2013

anonymousthing said:
EDIT: Put that on hold for a moment, checking permissions. Might have made a mistake

It works for me, but not for Google Now in the way that it should. Offline voice typing works (through the keyboard), tested by just going to SMS and dictating a message using the Voice Typing on Google Keyboard. Worked fine (although a bit off since I have an Australian accent).

Google Search/Now, on the other hand, likes to think that we don't have it installed and thus won't actually let you do anything offline. It keeps complaining that I don't have a connection to Google, but still won't let me do offline functions such as setting timers or starting a stopwatch.

Any ideas?

Check your settings->language and input->speech recognition. How many "Google" entries do you have? I have two, one for the offline, one for the online. I choose the online one (no real way to tell, try.) and all other voice toys work. Choose the offline and Google Search has stopped on any attempt to use voice recognition.

So I can get speech into google now from swype using its dragon (among the better) recognition. I must tap the search to make use of it. This works if the online google is chosen, above.

==============
More. Hitting that mic icon will crash Google Search, with variations. Sometimes, very quickly. Sometimes fails but with "speak now" displayed. If I am inside a search, it even shows the language (Spanish-Espania that I have set because of FCs on any English).

Since a couple of us have actually had it work once or so, there must be a way of getting it, but likely requires the best hackers around (Note: Google, forget I said that! -- YOU support our device).

Dovidhalevi · Dec 6, 2013

News Item: Voice Search gets an international upgrade; Xposed API

http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.il/...html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Says nothing, nada, about downloading new language models so these must be either included in the en-US or in the apk. Looking at the current 3.1.8 apk's contents shows pumpkins (love Google's naming) for en-US and several European languages (no Japanese but update will have it) more than those in the posting. Then action.punpkin are apparently commands understood by gnow and their UTF8? (not really, probably pure 2 byte Unicode!) representations in the target language. (OK, hackers, this looks like fair play!).

That 20meg+ download contains models for decoding sounds/phonemes/whatever, and possibly grammar rules. Look for an English+ version or maybe that is what we already have. CJK MUST!! have other rules.

So the pumpkins are baked into the pie (the 28th as last week

) However commands get into the box, they can be interpreted in the included languages. Type them, speak them, or get them there by some other "intent."

This leads the the next News Item http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2554173
The key may lie here or maybe soon will be. The sample plugins provided there work nicely.

arafsheikh · Dec 8, 2013

anonymousthing said:
It works for me, but not for Google Now in the way that it should. Offline voice typing works (through the keyboard), tested by just going to SMS and dictating a message using the Voice Typing on Google Keyboard. Worked fine (although a bit off since I have an Australian accent).

Google Search/Now, on the other hand, likes to think that we don't have it installed and thus won't actually let you do anything offline. It keeps complaining that I don't have a connection to Google, but still won't let me do offline functions such as setting timers or starting a stopwatch.

Any ideas?

The only offline voice action available (at least for me) is placing a call. Nothing else works

arafsheikh · Dec 8, 2013

Dovidhalevi said:
http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.il/...html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Says nothing, nada, about downloading new language models so these must be either included in the en-US or in the apk. Looking at the current 3.1.8 apk's contents shows pumpkins (love Google's naming) for en-US and several European languages (no Japanese but update will have it) more than those in the posting. Then action.punpkin are apparently commands understood by gnow and their UTF8? (not really, probably pure 2 byte Unicode!) representations in the target language. (OK, hackers, this looks like fair play!).

That 20meg+ download contains models for decoding sounds/phonemes/whatever, and possibly grammar rules. Look for an English+ version or maybe that is what we already have. CJK MUST!! have other rules.

So the pumpkins are baked into the pie (the 28th as last week ) However commands get into the box, they can be interpreted in the included languages. Type them, speak them, or get them there by some other "intent."

This leads the the next News Item http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2554173
The key may lie here or maybe soon will be. The sample plugins provided there work nicely.

Do you have the latest offline files? The one in the OP is a bit old
If you have please upload it

Dovidhalevi · Dec 8, 2013

arafsheikh said:
The only offline voice action available (at least for me) is placing a call. Nothing else works

That is not an FC. Looks like a fallback to online recognition (used to be such a thing)?

Maybe not! As I cited, the commands are parsed in the pumpkins. Placing call (or running an app) needs nothing outside the phone. Often enough, I have signin or no-connection errors with Google, unrelated to voice or armv6.

---------- Post added at 10:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 AM ----------

arafsheikh said:
Do you have the latest offline files? The one in the OP is a bit old
If you have please upload it

I do not know where to get them. Was hard enough to coax Mediafire to give me the one on the OP. If we can get a sideload of the new GoogleSearch, we might have some idea of what is going on. CJK cannot go off the same models are English and European languages. They are spoken differently, inflections, etc. That apk is not big enought to contain even one of these files, however.

Also, I have no accounts with Mediafire, etc. I suppose I could use my dropbox or drive were I to get these files. Wish Google were not making things sooo difficult. If I install an app "against advice" and it crashes, that is my problem.

Dovidhalevi · Dec 8, 2013

I have the December 7 apk!
Looks no different. No Japanese anything. So maybe this new version is not yet ready.

anonymousthing · Dec 9, 2013

arafsheikh said:
The only offline voice action available (at least for me) is placing a call. Nothing else works

Yep, exactly what I was getting. Looks like we'll have to find a way to spoof online-ness or spoof presence-of-language-pack.

arafsheikh · Dec 10, 2013

Dovidhalevi said:
I have the December 7 apk!
Looks no different. No Japanese anything. So maybe this new version is not yet ready.

I read somewhere that the update was server side, so there isn't anything in the apk

Dovidhalevi · Dec 10, 2013

arafsheikh said:
I read somewhere that the update was server side, so there isn't anything in the apk

Everything is/should be server side, including the UI for new cards instead of needing upgrades, but ...
Off-line voice recognition is client side by definition and CJK is simply spoken much differently than English and Western European languages.

daclothe · Dec 10, 2013

I used quickshortcutmaker to get to the hidden language pack screen so I know it's there. Wonder if that will help anyone else that's poking around with this stuff.

Dovidhalevi · Dec 11, 2013

daclothe said:
I used quickshortcutmaker to get to the hidden language pack screen so I know it's there. Wonder if that will help anyone else that's poking around with this stuff.

Veerrrry Iiiinterrestink!

Please explain how you did this? The picture in this case does not replace 100 words of good instruction.

anonymousthing · Dec 11, 2013

1. Get this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sika524.android.quickshortcut&hl=en
2. Go to activities tab (should be the default when you open it up)
3. Filter for the word "Google Search"
4. Open the Google Search tree
5. Should be there, but not sure because I haven't got Google Now on my phone. Only the crappy HTC normal voice search replacement.

Side note: anybody know how to get Google Now on a Sense device?

[GUIDE][WORKAROUND]Enable Google Now Offline Voice on Unsupported Devices

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