TTS stopped working after updating to Anki 26.09.2 on Windows 11

Anki Help
1

Hello,

I have a problem with Text-to-Speech (TTS) after updating Anki.

I am using Anki 26.09.2 on Windows 11.

Before the update, TTS worked correctly. After installing the new version, TTS no longer works at all, including in older decks/cards where it worked perfectly before.

Anki does recognize the Windows TTS voices. For example, I can see:

Microsoft_Hortense
Microsoft_Julie
Microsoft_Paul
Microsoft_Frank

I tested the following template:

{{tts fr_FR voices=Microsoft_Hortense:Achterkant}}

The play/speaker icon appears on the card, but when I click it, there is no sound.

I have already tried:

  • restarting Windows;
  • checking/installing the French Windows language and speech components;
  • updating Anki to version 26.09.2;
  • explicitly selecting Microsoft_Hortense;
  • starting Anki without add-ons.

None of these solved the problem.

Anki version information:

Anki 26.09.2 (bb0dd6d1)
Python 3.13.15
Qt 6.11.2
Chromium 140

I have several Anki profiles with a lot of study material, so I would prefer not to uninstall/reinstall or downgrade Anki unless I know that this is safe.

Is this a known issue with Anki 26.09.2 on Windows? Is there something else I can try to get Windows TTS working again?

Thank you very much for your help.

2

What was your previous Anki version? The last change to Windows TTS was in 26.05: Support WindowsRTTTSFilePlayer on Windows 11 by abdnh · Pull Request #4512 · ankitects/anki · GitHub

3

My previous version was Anki 26.08.1.
Windows TTS was working correctly in that version.
The problem started after I updated from 26.08.1 to 26.09.2.

The TTS play/speaker icon still appears, but there is no sound.

4

Is that the list you see when you put {{tts-voices:}} in your card template? Make sure you’re using the exact syntax given there for the voice. Those can change with OS updates and make your TTS suddenly stop working.

5

The list that I can see

TTS voices available:
{{tts en_US voices=Microsoft_Zira}}
{{tts fr_FR voices=Microsoft_Hortense}}
{{tts fr_FR voices=Microsoft_Hortense}}
{{tts fr_FR voices=Microsoft_Julie}}
{{tts fr_FR voices=Microsoft_Paul}}
{{tts nl_NL voices=Microsoft_Frank}}

6

Have you tried all of the ones from that list?

7

I tested all the available voices individually:

  • Microsoft Hortense (fr_FR) – no sound
  • Microsoft Julie (fr_FR) – no sound
  • Microsoft Paul (fr_FR) – no sound
  • Microsoft Frank (nl_NL) – no sound
  • Microsoft Zira (en_US) – no sound

Anki recognizes all these voices and the speaker/play icon appears on the card, but none of them produce any sound.

All of this worked before I updated from Anki 26.08.1 to 26.09.2.

8

As the developer said, there weren’t any changes to TTS functionality between those versions. There are security fixes, but nothing that should prevent TTS from working.

Other things to check or try [I’ve numbered them for reference, but you can take them in whatever order appeals to you] –

  1. For the notes that made the cards having this problem, are you sure that field has text in it? – A play icon that doesn’t do anything is what you’d see if the field was empty or unreadable.

  2. Have you recently updated Windows – or conversely, are you behind on Windows updates? Changes in how the OS handles TTS can usually be dealt with by updating the template, but sometimes TTS is just broken in the OS. That can either happen in an OS update, or be fixed by an OS update.

  3. Do you have other cards with sound – attached audio files, for instance? Can you hear those when they play? – Could be a sound/volume issue, unrelated to TTS.

  4. Have you tried using a {{tts}} tag without selecting a specific voice? Field Replacements - Anki Manual

  5. Restart in safe mode – Troubleshooting Checklist #2 – to make sure add-ons aren’t interfering.

  6. Run Anki from a command prompt – Startup Issues - Anki Manual – to see if there are any errors when you try to play TTS on one of those cards.

  7. Roll back to the version where this was working.