Audio Troubleshooting (Linux)

Problem: Espeak / Fallback is silent

If the fallback audio (espeak) is not audible, it is likely muted in the system’s sound mixer (e.g., PulseAudio or PipeWire).

The “Long String Trick” to Unmute

Short audio fragments often disappear too quickly from the mixer GUI to be unmuted manually. To fix this, force a long audio stream:

echo "$(yes "Testing sound. " | head -n 50)" | espeak