ValueError: Unable to find token seed! Did https://translate.google.com change?

[Mohammed-Shoaib]

After I send 10-15 requests, I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "text_to_speech.py", line 25, in <module>
    text_to_speech(data)
  File "text_to_speech.py", line 17, in text_to_speech
    tts.save(f'audio/{key}/def-{i + 1}.mp3')
  File "/home/shoaib/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gtts/tts.py", line 111, in save
    self.write_to_fp(f)
  File "/home/shoaib/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gtts/tts.py", line 124, in write_to_fp
    'tk' : self.token.calculate_token(part)}
  File "/home/shoaib/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gtts_token/gtts_token.py", line 28, in calculate_token
    seed = self._get_token_key()
  File "/home/shoaib/anaconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/gtts_token/gtts_token.py", line 59, in _get_token_key
    "Unable to find token seed! Did https://translate.google.com change?"
ValueError: Unable to find token seed! Did https://translate.google.com change?

I thought this might be a bug in the latest release, i.e., 2.1.1 so I tried 1.2.0 and I still get the same error.

I also thought it could be that my IP address is being blocked. I read up on the Quotas & limits and I don't think that should be an issue as well.

• Characters per request: 67 (on average), never more than the allowed 5000
• Requests per minute: never exceeds 15 since I get the error, allowed 300

System information:

• Operating System: Manjaro Linux
• Kernel: Linux 5.8.11-1-MANJARO
• Architecture: x86-64

Thank you for your timely help. ☺️ ✨

[thedaynos]

I started getting this last week periodically. It happened about 10 times to me today. I have no clue.

[Mohammed-Shoaib]

The error is not continuous, it happens randomly from what I can tell. For me it's definitely within 10-15 requests.

Since I observed that it doesn't happen continuously, I just wrote a while loop in python to try again if the error occurred:

import os
from gtts import gTTS

text = 'Your sentence requiring text to speech'
file_path = 'text.mp3'

while not os.path.exists(file_path) or os.path.getsize(file_path) == 0:
	try:
		tts = gTTS(text=text, lang='en', slow=False)
		tts.save(file_path)
	except Exception as e:
		print(e.message)

Obviously, this is a very bad solution and I would never recommend it. But it does the job for now as a temporary fix until this issue gets permanently resolved.

[thedaynos]

That's interesting. Mine was breaking on the tts.save line, so this wasn't working for me. This is how I got it working...

import os
from gtts import gTTS
count=1
text = 'Your sentence requiring text to speech'
file_path = 'text.mp3'
tts = gTTS(text=text, lang='en', slow=False)
while True:
	try:
		tts.save(file_path)
                break
	except: 
		print('got the issue '+str(count))
                count+=1

I have the count in there just out of curiosity, obviously you don't need that. I just tried this for about 20 minutes and got the error maybe 20% of the time. Only once did the count get to 2.

Seems to be working without crashing now.

[afonsosantos]

Happening with me also, using Python 3.9 on Windows 10.
Used this library before and not issues, check the code here: https://github.com/afonsosantos/alexis/blob/master/main.py

The error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\main.py", line 25, in <module>
    respond(voice_data)
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\main.py", line 9, in respond
    date()
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\commands\date_time.py", line 9, in date
    speak('A data de hoje é ' + str(today_date))
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\utils\audio.py", line 51, in speak
    tts.save(audio_file)
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts\tts.py", line 295, in save
    self.write_to_fp(f)
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts\tts.py", line 251, in write_to_fp
    prepared_requests = self._prepare_requests()
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts\tts.py", line 194, in _prepare_requests
    part_tk = self.token.calculate_token(part)
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts_token\gtts_token.py", line 28, in calculate_token
    seed = self._get_token_key()
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts_token\gtts_token.py", line 58, in _get_token_key
    raise ValueError(
ValueError: Unable to find token seed! Did https://translate.google.com change?

EDIT: after some analysis, seems to be crashing on the tts.save line as below:

[thedaynos]

Yes it's crashing at the save. Take a look at the fix I presented above. It will keep the code working. Just use a while loop and put the "try" call on the save with a break after. For the except, you can put anything in there. I just liked to see an error message but it's completely optional.

This is obviously not ideal but the code is working fine on my end after implementing the while loop.

[afonsosantos]

Hi @thedaynos , thanks for the help. I will make that "fix".
Maybe this is a issue related to Python 3.9? What version are you using?

[thedaynos]

no problem @afonsosantos ... I'm using 3.6 on ubuntu. I updated all of the libraries/packages that I'm using as well.

[Mohammed-Shoaib]

@afonsosantos I am using Python 3.8.5, I doubt it could be an issue related to Python.

@thedaynos You are right, the error isn't that often. For me, the max number of continuous failed attempts were 3 and it is occurring on the line tts.save function call.

[badjano]

found a guy saying to add client=tw-ob in the url ( can´t be sure why, and if it works 100% of the time)

https://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&q=Annoying%20bug&tl=en-US&client=tw-ob

EDIT: BTW, you can use this url to download, so you don´t even need this repo

[afonsosantos]

I can make a PR with that change and see if that improves anything.
Opened PR #234

[Mohammed-Shoaib]

I found the post,

Add the qualifier '&client=tw-ob' to the end of your query. https://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&q=test&tl=zh-TW&client=tw-ob

This answer no longer works consistently. Your ip address will be blocked by google temporarily if you abuse this too much.

Seems like adding client=tw-ob doesn't work consistently though.

[XuanKien-Nguyen]

I'm also stuck in this bug.
anyone can fix this

[afonsosantos]

@badjano seems like using that link too much gets you locked.

I will for alternative services until this issue is fixed.

[Fabian42]

@afonsosantos What is "too much"? Google Translate TTS in general has a limit of 2M characters per day.

[afonsosantos]

@Fabian42 as @Mohammed-Shoaib stated:

Your ip address will be blocked by google temporarily if you abuse this too much.

I don't want the risk of being blocked by using that parameter, and If that does not work either, I will find alternatives.

[Mohammed-Shoaib]

@afonsosantos You don't really need to find or use alternatives though.

As mentioned by @thedaynos in his comment, you could use the same trick temporarily for now until this gets fixed. I am sure the developers will eventually fix this soon, let's be patient.

[afonsosantos]

@Mohammed-Shoaib I will, but I need alternartives in case the issue does not get fixed soon. I don't want to put pressure on the projects devs.
Thanks for all the solutions provided.

[fidelhuang1]

i have same problem

[silvertree-arc]

I have the same problem, at first was intermittent now all the time. @alexrink96 has posted a good workaround here using the requests library >> (#226 (comment)) that uses a different way to access the api and it is working for me at the moment.

[afonsosantos]

That looks like a good alternative, even to this library itself. Will test that and report the results.
Thanks @silvertree-arc

[marvin-w]

Multiple users in the mycroft chat including me also reported this error. I'll check if I can test the workaround.

[marvin-w]

The underlyting gtts-token library was just updated with this change: Boudewijn26/gTTS-token@8d68185 and it was released already.

However, this still doesn't fix the actual problem but instead just hides it in the background. (Retry 5 times or throw error)

[pndurette]

Yeah, this is starting to get tough to maintain/counter. It's a pretty unorthodox usage of this translate endpoint after all..

But will pull in the updated gtts-token and other fixes and do a release later today.

[pndurette]

found a guy saying to add client=tw-ob in the url ( can´t be sure why, and if it works 100% of the time)

https://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&q=Annoying%20bug&tl=en-US&client=tw-ob

EDIT: BTW, you can use this url to download, so you don´t even need this repo

This is the URL this library uses.
gTTS just helps out with everything that goes around it: maximum length, languages, tokenizing long sentences, etc), basically what you'd have to do to make just requesting this URL work well for you.

Over the years, I've had to change the tw URL param a few times. Hadn't had to in a while.

However, looking at network traffic when using the newer https://translate.google.com, it's pretty obvious that Google has switched to another way of generating speech. It doesn't hit /translate_tts anymore. So it probably will disappear eventually. I haven't been able to understand their new method yet.

Considering how many libraries use gTTS (or derivatives of it, like Home Assistant, see: home-assistant/core#42911, e.g. https://github.com/home-assistant/core/blob/dev/homeassistant/components/google_translate/tts.py), for sure their SREs are aware of this by now and possibly very annoyed by the usage this generates.

I enjoy a good challenge of trying to find a way to make this work reliability again, but as I was saying, this will become more and more difficult—perhaps impossible.

[pndurette]

gTTS has been updated to 2.1.2!

It updates gTTS-token to 1.1.4 and a few other various fixes, see changelog.

I've also reworked the GitHub Action workflows and "marked" with PyTest the tests that try to access the /translate_tts URL (most of them) and allowed them to fail for now. Like I stated above, I will try to look into a better way to work around this.

[Boudewijn26]

To add to this discussion: I, as maintainer of gTTS-token, also intent to look into this further in order to, if possible, ensure compatibility with the new changes Google is rolling out. This has been complicated by the simple fact I haven't received the new Google Translate yet. It's not at all uncommon for larger corporations to roll out changes gradually and that indeed appears to be happening here. We don't have any insight into which regions get this new "feature" first, so we'll just have to wait for now.

That being said, this is an undocumented API, so we really can't blame Google for changing this without notice. For what I gather Google has turned a blind eye towards this whole thing. It wouldn't be too difficult for them to obfuscate the API to such an amount it'd be tremendously difficult to reverse engineer, which is something they haven't done (yet?) in the many years these projects exist.

As stated, should this problem persist, everyone is free to comment on Boudewijn26/gTTS-token#20 or raise a new issue there (or continue the discussion here, I suppose).

[marvin-w]

@pndurette Your lib uses the requests package. I think one reason for them to not go with it might be the fact that you aren't using the aiohttp package instead. Also, one should probably be able to inject the websession directly into the library.

I'm not quite sure on how I'd tackle the update on HA side, I'll give them a ping in their discord and let them decide. I hope someone of them will reply here :).

[pndurette]

aiohttp client is pretty nice and maybe what I should head towards—gTTS has been using requests since 2014! But the work for async requests is all over the place, a lot of it isn't maintained and/or is for older Python 3.

[hmmbob]

Seems like the old solution in HA finally broke completely now.... :(

home-assistant/core#43801

[pndurette]

@hmmbob Ah yeah that was imminent. Sadly did not have any time to work on the above to make gTTS more HA-friendly. 😭

[hmmbob]

Just checked with one of the core devs (Frenck): there is no need for you to redo your package to use aiohttp instead of requests (basically, the answer was "he can use anything he likes" lol)
Work will need to be done in integration the package correctly in the HA Google TTS component

Wish I could be of help, but I don't have the programming experience to build this myself....

[marvin-w]

@hmmbob Could you properly test it if I do it?

[hmmbob]

I'd say yes (it basically involves installing it as custom_component, I guess?)

Have a few people around me that could test too.

[marvin-w]

I'd create a feature branch - you'd basically have to check it out and run HA from there and then test google_translate.

[hmmbob]

That's ok. Maybe we should switch to your issue at HA for this effort?

[devmaster-terian]

Seems like the old solution in HA finally broke completely now.... :(

home-assistant/core#43801

Yes, now is completely broken... I couldn't use the API since yesterday.

[ghost]

This is the error I get before I add the new gTTS master (that is, with the gtts file and the gtts_token):

Error
An error occurred. Please start Anki while holding down the shift key, which will temporarily disable the add-ons you have installed.
If the issue only occurs when add-ons are enabled, please use the Tools > Add-ons menu item to disable some add-ons and restart Anki, repeating until you discover the add-on that is causing the problem.
When you've discovered the add-on that is causing the problem, please report the issue on the add-on support site.
Debug info:
Anki 2.1.35 (84dcaa86) Python 3.8.0 Qt 5.14.2 PyQt 5.14.2
Platform: Windows 10
Flags: frz=True ao=True sv=1
Add-ons, last update check: 2020-12-02 18:26:16

Caught exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "aqt\webview.py", line 37, in cmd
File "aqt\webview.py", line 123, in _onCmd
File "aqt\webview.py", line 547, in _onBridgeCmd
File "aqt\editor.py", line 403, in onBridgeCmd
File "aqt\gui_hooks.py", line 1487, in call
File "anki\hooks.py", line 594, in runFilter
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\edit.py", line 74, in onFocusLost
if update_fields(note, field, allFields):
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\behavior.py", line 270, in update_fields
fill_sound(hanzi, copy)
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\behavior.py", line 169, in fill_sound
s = sound(hanzi, config['speech'])
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\sound.py", line 51, in sound
return '[sound:%s]' % AudioDownloader(hanzi, source).download()
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\tts.py", line 50, in download
self.func()
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\tts.py", line 56, in get_google
tts.save(self.path)
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\lib\gtts\tts.py", line 243, in save
self.write_to_fp(f)
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\lib\gtts\tts.py", line 183, in write_to_fp
part_tk = self.token.calculate_token(part)
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\lib\gtts_token\gtts_token.py", line 28, in calculate_token
seed = self._get_token_key()
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\lib\gtts_token\gtts_token.py", line 58, in _get_token_key
raise ValueError(
ValueError: Unable to find token seed! Did https://translate.google.com change?

However, this is what I get when I add the new gTTS master one and delete the other two files:
Error
An error occurred. Please start Anki while holding down the shift key, which will temporarily disable the add-ons you have installed.
If the issue only occurs when add-ons are enabled, please use the Tools > Add-ons menu item to disable some add-ons and restart Anki, repeating until you discover the add-on that is causing the problem.
When you've discovered the add-on that is causing the problem, please report the issue on the add-on support site.
Debug info:
Anki 2.1.35 (84dcaa86) Python 3.8.0 Qt 5.14.2 PyQt 5.14.2
Platform: Windows 10
Flags: frz=True ao=True sv=1
Add-ons, last update check: 2020-12-02 18:26:16

Caught exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "aqt\webview.py", line 37, in cmd
File "aqt\webview.py", line 123, in _onCmd
File "aqt\webview.py", line 547, in _onBridgeCmd
File "aqt\editor.py", line 403, in onBridgeCmd
File "aqt\gui_hooks.py", line 1487, in call
File "anki\hooks.py", line 594, in runFilter
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\edit.py", line 74, in onFocusLost
if update_fields(note, field, allFields):
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\behavior.py", line 270, in update_fields
fill_sound(hanzi, copy)
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\behavior.py", line 169, in fill_sound
s = sound(hanzi, config['speech'])
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\sound.py", line 51, in sound
return '[sound:%s]' % AudioDownloader(hanzi, source).download()
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\tts.py", line 50, in download
self.func()
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\tts.py", line 56, in get_google
tts.save(self.path)
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\lib\gtts\tts.py", line 243, in save
self.write_to_fp(f)
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\lib\gtts\tts.py", line 183, in write_to_fp
part_tk = self.token.calculate_token(part)
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\lib\gtts_token\gtts_token.py", line 28, in calculate_token
seed = self._get_token_key()
File "C:\Users\Justin Perez\AppData\Roaming\Anki2\addons21\1128979221\lib\gtts_token\gtts_token.py", line 58, in _get_token_key
raise ValueError(
ValueError: Unable to find token seed! Did https://translate.google.com change?

Please help and explain in simple dumb terms, as I am not a coder in any way, shape or form but a simple man just trying to use anki to learn Chinese. Please help thank you

[mkanet]

Please forgive my ignorance. I am getting this error when using the below card:

entity: media_player.living_room_speaker
hold_action:
action: none
show_icon: true
show_name: true
tap_action:
action: call-service
service: tts.google_translate_say
service_data:
    entity_id: media_player.living_room_speaker
    message: Please remember to close the back door!
type: entity-button

However, I am still able to make the same device talk successfully by using below:

Call Service:  tts.google_translate_say
entity_id: media_player.living_room_speaker
message: Please remember to close the back door!

I'm curious why does one work, but not the other? They are both making my Google Nest speak. Will I be able to use the card that's failing now in an upcoming Home Assistant version without changing anything in my configuration?

[pndurette]

Just closing this, as it was kept for discussion after the issue was fixed and then bit of an HA direction talk but it's starting to derail a bit.

So cool to see this go to HA, thanks for your work all. I'll sure try to contribute when I can!

[Hasibulkarimratul]

Has the Error been fixed? Should I just upgrade gTTS ans gTTS-token?

[MandarJKulkarni]

Has the Error been fixed? Should I just upgrade gTTS ans gTTS-token?

Upgrading the versions worked for me.

[rajveer01]

Uninstall and Reinstall of gTTS worked For me.

[ak-115]

Happening with me also, using Python 3.9 on Windows 10.
Used this library before and not issues, check the code here: https://github.com/afonsosantos/alexis/blob/master/main.py

The error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\main.py", line 25, in <module>
    respond(voice_data)
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\main.py", line 9, in respond
    date()
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\commands\date_time.py", line 9, in date
    speak('A data de hoje é ' + str(today_date))
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\utils\audio.py", line 51, in speak
    tts.save(audio_file)
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts\tts.py", line 295, in save
    self.write_to_fp(f)
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts\tts.py", line 251, in write_to_fp
    prepared_requests = self._prepare_requests()
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts\tts.py", line 194, in _prepare_requests
    part_tk = self.token.calculate_token(part)
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts_token\gtts_token.py", line 28, in calculate_token
    seed = self._get_token_key()
  File "C:\Users\afons\Desktop\pyvoice\pyVoice\venv\lib\site-packages\gtts_token\gtts_token.py", line 58, in _get_token_key
    raise ValueError(
ValueError: Unable to find token seed! Did https://translate.google.com change?

EDIT: after some analysis, seems to be crashing on the tts.save line as below:

bro the same is happening with me tooo
I guess there is a server problem from gtts site

[Shivampurbia]

tried uninstalling and installing but still the same error.

[ibelgin]

Uninstall and Reinstalling it Helped Me