Live Transcribe Problem

Posted by joyces @joyces, Dec 4, 2019

First, I bought a cheap Android tablet and downloaded Live Transcribe. It worked, but the mic was so weak that it was useless, except for my own voice. I ditched my perfectly good IPhone and switched to an Android (Samsung A20) and downloaded Live Transcribe. I tried it at home with the TV, but most of the time there were no icons at the bottom of the screen, so I couldn't make it start. I did go to "Accessability" and ask to use Live Transcribe, but it still didn't work most of the time. I thought perhaps the mic wasn't strong enough to pick up electronic voices from the TV. Today, I went to a meeting of 10 people and fired up Live Transcribe...and got a message "App is offline. You'll see sound events, but not transcription." I was able to connect to the internet, but my phone continued to give me the same disappointing message. Another meeting of mystery discussion, dammit! I've searched on line to find an answer, but haven't been able to. This is extremely disappointing...the IPhone could connect for phone calls, at least, even though Otter was a dismal failure because it lagged five minutes or more behind and was unable to understand tech terms. Anyone else have this problem or know what I might be able to do--other than hurl the phone at the brick wall next to my desk????

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@lolliegee

I'm so sorry the fires affected your area so badly. I live just north of Eugene in Coburg. The closest fire to us (just about 20 miles) is the Holiday Farm fire. They haven't posted today's update yet, but as of yesterday it was still only just barely contained at 10% even with all the rain we just got. I hope you and your town are able to recover quickly.

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Our small town will be affected by this for decades into the future. We require a large workforce to do all the jobs necessary for tourism...but we have almost no housing for those minimum-wage workers. The hundred homes burned were mostly the only places available for tourism workers, including a 35-unit mobile home park where the homes were owned by the owner and available for reasonable rent. The most likely outcome is that lots of tourism workers will leave the area due to lack of affordable housing. The City continues to encourage vacation rental dwellings (VRDs) that rent for hundreds per night instead of affordable housing. Over the past 25 years, most of the modest homes in town have been razed and replaced with two-story, 4-5 BR VRDs.

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@joyces

I haven't yet found a meeting room where Live Transcribe works, but this is a largely rural area. Haven't yet found an induction loop anywhere in the county, either. We're still working to recover from the forest fires we've had, one that threatened the town. In a town that has absolutely no affordable housing (but lots of expensive vacation rentals), we suddenly have over a hundred homes, mostly very modest or mobile, gone from the area just north of town. It almost seems as though this fire targeted those who had the least, so everyone is pitching in to provide whatever we can: food, clothing, toiletries, a temporary place to stay. After over a week working in church parking lots to distribute things to people who suddenly have nothing, not hearing well is not a problem.

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@joyces
It certainly puts things into perspective. Be safe and blessings for helping out others.

FL Mary

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I am having the same issue with Live Transcribe. I thought for sure it used to work great at the bank without having to change the wifi connection. But now everywhere I go that I do not have an autoconnect setup for wifi I get that offline message. It seems like something changed. I thought it used data when wifi was not available. Does anyone know if there is a way to use cellular data instead of wifi for the app?

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Live Transcribe is not private and secure. It's not approved for conversations in medical or banking facilities where privacy and security is very important. That may be why it's not working in those situations. Same for business conference rooms where the conversations may be propietary. For a secure system that does work with WiFi and cellular data (the transmissions are fully encrypted) use http://www.streamer.center. It costs about $8.25/mo for unlimited use with as many people as you want (you're encouraged to share your subscription with others).

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@livingat45north

Live Transcribe is not private and secure. It's not approved for conversations in medical or banking facilities where privacy and security is very important. That may be why it's not working in those situations. Same for business conference rooms where the conversations may be propietary. For a secure system that does work with WiFi and cellular data (the transmissions are fully encrypted) use http://www.streamer.center. It costs about $8.25/mo for unlimited use with as many people as you want (you're encouraged to share your subscription with others).

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Thank you. I will check it out.

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I would suggest Uninstall and make sure you install through Live Transcribe with their active help. Sometimes a program can be installed by clicking a connection obtained through a different source, and that can be a real problem. It actually happened to me the first time I tried to use it. I went to my cell provider (in my case, Target) and explained my dilemma, and tech helped me get it installed correctly.

Had a problem with another app installation, I believe it was DecibelX, and Best Buy geek helped me with that one.

It is Sometimes too easy to add things through sites that create problems with the effect, so I have help with others and make sure I am on exact site to do it.

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Cheryl @th1 Thanks for useful info!

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@th1

I would suggest Uninstall and make sure you install through Live Transcribe with their active help. Sometimes a program can be installed by clicking a connection obtained through a different source, and that can be a real problem. It actually happened to me the first time I tried to use it. I went to my cell provider (in my case, Target) and explained my dilemma, and tech helped me get it installed correctly.

Had a problem with another app installation, I believe it was DecibelX, and Best Buy geek helped me with that one.

It is Sometimes too easy to add things through sites that create problems with the effect, so I have help with others and make sure I am on exact site to do it.

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@th1
You are right. I would never install an app from a website....did that once years ago and desktop Mac got infected...had to have it serviced. I only get apps from the play store on my Android phone or from the App Store on my iPad or Mac..and even then I am cautious. Live transcribe was from the play store.

As for Live transcribe...I do use it a lot with mask wearing but always keep in mind where I am and what Information I am sharing.
It is still a major fail in restaurants and, while I was out of state recently, I switched to Otter on my phone (I use the free version) while in restaurants. Still impressed with how accurate it is and the greater distance it can be used.

I would like to share another phone app called Voice To Text. I find this works well when Live transcribe fails me. You have to hit the mic and it keeps the dialogue until you delete it. Fairly accurate but, with mask wearing, some voices are too muffled.
I think it works on IPhones also.

FL Mary

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@lolliegee

I know this is an old thread, but I wanted to try Live Transcribe again. Going to the doctor now with everyone wearing masks is awful. Even with my hearing aids. Anyhow, it says you need to be connected with Wi-Fi or a network connection. My phone has a 5G connection, so I should be able to use it anywhere. Unfortunately, I keep getting the App is offline notice and it tries to send me to Wi-Fi settings. I don't get it. I can't find any way to tell it to use my phone connection. Can anyone help? Access to wifi isn't always guaranteed, so to be a true accessibility app, it should be able to use your phone's network data connection.

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@lolliegee
Hi,
I know this is an old post but I solved the Live Transcribe problem of it not working in certain areas for me by turning WiFi off. Now I can use it in those places where I normally couldn’t. And I live in an area with great WiFi connectivity.

I also use Innocaption + on my cell phone....never had much of a problem with it except for unstable network messages. So now I have WiFi off pretty much all the time.
I also use Otter and all these speech to text apps work without WiFi turned on regardless of what the instructions say.

We have unlimited cell phone data plan but it has not increased significantly . For reasons I don’t truly understand my battery life is very much improved. Maybe because WiFi roaming is off.

This may help with the problem.

FL Mary

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@imallears

@lolliegee
Hi,
I know this is an old post but I solved the Live Transcribe problem of it not working in certain areas for me by turning WiFi off. Now I can use it in those places where I normally couldn’t. And I live in an area with great WiFi connectivity.

I also use Innocaption + on my cell phone....never had much of a problem with it except for unstable network messages. So now I have WiFi off pretty much all the time.
I also use Otter and all these speech to text apps work without WiFi turned on regardless of what the instructions say.

We have unlimited cell phone data plan but it has not increased significantly . For reasons I don’t truly understand my battery life is very much improved. Maybe because WiFi roaming is off.

This may help with the problem.

FL Mary

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Thank you for sharing this.

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