I was meerly pointing out the fact that speechd_up and the softsynth module are highly experimental at this point in time. I'm glad you're trying to figure out why but, at the same time, there are those and my comments were not necissarily directed at you personally, who just want everything to work and I must admit from time to time when I ain't in a position to fiddle and debug, am one of them. email me privately and let me know everything you've done. if you've got some kind of eror log email that to me too so I can see what's breaking and where. There could be any number of reasons why it's falling over for you and a couple of others. if I can sort you out at least then you can come back here and let the rest know what was and what wasn't. -- Shaun Oliver "I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person." email: shaun.oliver at optusnet.com.au WEB: http://blindman.homelinux.org/~blindman/ IRC: irc.awesomechat.net:6666 IRCNICK: blindman