Speech Recognition & Synthesis not working properly on Jolla Store version of MicroG

Bug Reports
1

REPRODUCIBILITY: Always
OS VERSION: 5.2.0.17 (Finlayson) with AAS Android version 15 (patch level 05/05/2026)
HARDWARE: Jolla Phone 2
UI LANGUAGE: English (UK)
REGRESSION: Yes, as version of MicroG (from 14th July) installed from F-Droid does not have this problem

DESCRIPTION:

While some Android apps do seem to recognise that “Speech Recognition & Synthesis” is installed, the “HERE WeGo” app from the Aurora store has no voice guidance options if you go to it’s Settings > Voice options. (There was also somewhere else it didn’t work, but I don’t remember at the moment.)

PRECONDITIONS:

A Jolla Phone 2 (so you can use/install MicroG from the Jolla Store).

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

  1. Enable AAS & install MicroG from the Jolla Store (as if you had gotten a new Jolla Phone 2 & gone through the standard set-up procedure).

  2. Install the Aurora store.

  3. From the Aurora store, install the “Speech Recognition & Synthesis” pseudo-app (as I don’t think it’s installed by default?)

  4. From the Aurora store, install the HERE WeGo app.

  5. I don’t recall exactly what steps are involved in getting HERE WeGo going the first time, but it should be fairly obvious.

  6. In HERE WeGo, pull the bottom area up to reveal “Settings” & tap on it, and tap on “Voice options”. You should see no option for choosing any language for voice guidance, as it thinks it’s not available.

EXPECTED RESULT:

Either it defaults to voice guidance in your default language, or at least the “Choose language” button will be available to choose one. Other options for voice guidance are available.

ACTUAL RESULT:

“No voice” is selected, and all other options are greyed-out & unresponsive.

MODIFICATIONS:

I don’t think there’s anything relevant. I’ve tried to install the minimum apps from Chum & Storeman. I do have many Android apps firewalled from internet access, but that’s not relevant here (see below).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

I was able to get Voice Guidance to be available & work by ONLY making the following changes:

  1. Uninstall MicroG from the Jolla Store, and then restart the phone just in case.
  2. Follow the usual steps for installing & setting-up MicroG manually:
    Installing microG on Sailfish OS
    (I wasn’t able to install “microG Services Framework Proxy” as it’s listed as Incompatible, and I also couldn’t enable certain other options that were previously enabled, but they don’t seem to be necessary for this.)
  3. Make sure that “Allow running microG services” is enabled in Android AppSupport’s settings.
  4. Start HERE WeGo, and you should find that Voice Guidance is magically working!
2

You likely need to set the module as the voice input source. Even once it’s installed, the Android environment doesn’t set SR&S as the default.
Go to your Android AppSupport menu, click “show licenses” at the bottom, then back up a step. You should be in the Android settings pane. Scroll to System > Languages & input > Voice input, then you should be able to select Speech Recognition and Synthesis. You can also now access the SR&S settings to download the language onto the device.

3

I didn’t need to do that F-Droid version of MicroG, but I do remember that going to “Languages & input” > “Text-to-speech output” is greyed-out & did not react.

You can also now access the SR&S settings to download the language onto the device.

Are you saying that you have a Jolla Phone 2 with the built-in MicroG installed (from the Jolla Store), and when you run HERE WeGo (from the Aurora store) you get access to Voice Guidance options? (If you have NOT done that, then please come back when you have. As mentioned, Speech Recognition and Synthesis does work in SOME Android apps.)

4

My device is a 10iii with 5.1 and AAS 13, but from testing, until I deliberately went to my Android settings, HERE WeGo didn’t allow voice synthesis. I suppose some changes were made with AAS 15 that could be breaking that.

5

I am not the only person who noticed this problem, and I did not discover the solution myself:

1 Like
6

Maybe the version of microG from Jolla Store works differently than the version currently available from F-Droid? (do the versions differ?)

I followed this instruction and got voice guidance working in HERE WeGo on a JP2, but haven’t used it outside of that app, so can’t speak for other apps using voice guidance.

1 Like
7

Yes, they do differ.

Oh thanks for the pointer. Perhaps rebooting the JP2 would have been enough to allow Google’s Speech Recognition & Synthesis to work?

8

I haven’t upgraded yet, but just confirming that I reinstalled MicroG from the Jolla Store, and voice synthesis still seems to work in the Android app I had most problems with.

So most likely all I needed to do was reboot my phone (after installing voice synthesis) to get it working. i.e. Jolla’s MicroG probably not at fault (although I did also update to a newer version via F-Droid even though I have installed from the Jolla Store).