Wyoming Piper not speaking: FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory:

[yachts-quad]

Hey - I'm trying really hard to get Wyoming Piper working but after many hours I'm stuck. Any advice is extremely appreciated here, I think Piper is awesome and has such great potential. I'm not a gifted coder like many of you but I've beein working with Claude to cover off as much as possible.
Cheers

Context

• Wyoming Piper in venv inside WSL (whisper and ollama run on same machine, it has an RTX3090, whisper runs fine with Wyoming)
• Home Assistant is running in VM on Prox Mox. No issues with Wyoming Faster Whisper.
• Piper works fine locally in the venv, I can create test .wavs and play them back using aplay
• Piper connects with HA via Wyoming integration seemingly fine, but fails everytime it's time to speak.

Versions

5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2 #1 SMP Tue Nov 5 00:21:55 UTC 2024 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Python 3.12.3 
piper_phonemize_cross     1.2.1
piper-tts                 1.2.0
wyoming                   1.5.3
wyoming_piper             1.5.0  (I have tried 1.3.0, 1.3.2 1.4.0 1.5.0)

Logs

Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.handler:input: {'text': "I'm here, alive and kicking (or rather, processing). What's on your mind? Don't expect a fancy introduction or anything. Just ask me something already."}
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.handler:
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]: ERROR:asyncio:Task exception was never retrieved
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]: future: <Task finished name='wyoming event handler' coro=<AsyncEventHandler.run() done, defined at /home/mark/piper/piper_env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming/server.py:31> exception=FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory')>
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]: Traceback (most recent call last):
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:   File "/home/mark/piper/piper_env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming/server.py", line 41, in run
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:     if not (await self.handle_event(event)):
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:   File "/home/mark/piper/piper_env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming_piper/handler.py", line 53, in handle_event
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:     raise err
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:   File "/home/mark/piper/piper_env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming_piper/handler.py", line 48, in handle_event
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:     return await self._handle_event(event)
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:   File "/home/mark/piper/piper_env/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming_piper/handler.py", line 108, in _handle_event
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:     wav_file: wave.Wave_read = wave.open(output_path, "rb")
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:   File "/usr/lib/python3.12/wave.py", line 649, in open
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:     return Wave_read(f)
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:            ^^^^^^^^^^^^
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:   File "/usr/lib/python3.12/wave.py", line 282, in __init__
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:     f = builtins.open(f, 'rb')
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]:         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Feb 21 13:08:36 bonobo bash[93307]: FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ''

It's not a permissions issue and the temp folders are being created.

systemd file

[Unit]
Description=Piper Wyoming Service
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=mark
WorkingDirectory=/home/mark/piper
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c "source /home/mark/piper/piper_env/bin/activate && \
    python -m wyoming_piper \
    --piper /home/mark/piper/piper_env/bin/piper \
    --voice en_US-ljspeech-medium \
    --update-voices \
    --uri 'tcp://0.0.0.0:10200' \
    --data-dir /home/mark/piper/models \
    --download-dir /home/mark/piper/models \
    --debug"
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
Environment="PATH=/home/mark/piper/piper_env/bin:$PATH"
Environment="VIRTUAL_ENV=/home/mark/piper/piper_env"
Environment="TMPDIR=/home/mark/piper/tmp"
Environment="TEMP=/home/mark/piper/tmp"
Environment="TMP=/home/mark/piper/tmp"
Environment=PULSE_SERVER=unix:/mnt/wslg/PulseServer
Environment=WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-0
Environment=DISPLAY=:0
Environment=XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/mnt/wslg/runtime-dir
Environment=PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
[Install]`

[martin3000]

It seems that in handler.py, output_path = (await piper_proc.proc.stdout.readline()).decode().strip() never ends and does not return the output_path.

[charlieegan3]

I am seeing the same issue. Here DEBUG:wyoming_piper.handler: the handler seems to get an empty line back from the piper call and then the file blank and so can't be opened to play back.

Apr 14 17:31:15 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: INFO:wyoming_piper.__main__:Ready
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.handler:Synthesize(text='6:31 PM', voice=SynthesizeVoice(name='en_GB-semaine-medium', language=None, speaker=None))
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.handler:synthesize: raw_text=6:31 PM, text='6:31 PM.'
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.process:Stopping process for: en_GB-southern_english_female-low
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.process:Starting process for: en_GB-semaine-medium (1/1)
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.download:Checking /var/lib/wyoming/piper/en_GB-semaine-medium.onnx
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.download:Checking /var/lib/wyoming/piper/en_GB-semaine-medium.onnx.json
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.process:Starting piper process: /nix/store/zpr0754211z9970kvabqgfqgwqygsdwn-piper-2023.11.14-2/bin/piper args=['--model', '/var/lib/wyoming/piper/en_GB-semaine-medium.onnx', '--config', '/var/lib/wyoming/piper/en_GB-semaine-medium.onnx.json', '--output_dir', '/tmp/tmp6t3s0ar0', '--json-input', '--noise-scale', '0.667', '--length-scale', '1.0', '--noise-w', '0.333']
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.handler:input: {'text': '6:31 PM.'}
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: DEBUG:wyoming_piper.handler:
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: ERROR:asyncio:Task exception was never retrieved
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: future: <Task finished name='wyoming event handler' coro=<AsyncEventHandler.run() done, defined at /nix/store/6cd2pb6s1vcx0qdzpq10kgmf9xkkyyid-python3.12-wyoming-1.6.0/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming/server.py:31> exception=FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory')>
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: Traceback (most recent call last):
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:   File "/nix/store/6cd2pb6s1vcx0qdzpq10kgmf9xkkyyid-python3.12-wyoming-1.6.0/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming/server.py", line 41, in run
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:     if not (await self.handle_event(event)):
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:   File "/nix/store/fv1605pwhyrd2yn6gbfyylg3v4gdcb03-wyoming-piper-1.5.2/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming_piper/handler.py", line 53, in handle_event
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:     raise err
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:   File "/nix/store/fv1605pwhyrd2yn6gbfyylg3v4gdcb03-wyoming-piper-1.5.2/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming_piper/handler.py", line 48, in handle_event
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:     return await self._handle_event(event)
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:   File "/nix/store/fv1605pwhyrd2yn6gbfyylg3v4gdcb03-wyoming-piper-1.5.2/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming_piper/handler.py", line 108, in _handle_event
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:     wav_file: wave.Wave_read = wave.open(output_path, "rb")
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:   File "/nix/store/f2krmq3iv5nibcvn4rw7nrnrciqprdkh-python3-3.12.9/lib/python3.12/wave.py", line 649, in open
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:     return Wave_read(f)
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:            ^^^^^^^^^^^^
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:   File "/nix/store/f2krmq3iv5nibcvn4rw7nrnrciqprdkh-python3-3.12.9/lib/python3.12/wave.py", line 282, in __init__
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:     f = builtins.open(f, 'rb')
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]:         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Apr 14 17:31:28 hs1 wyoming-piper[22351]: FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ''

I am unsure what would cause that line to be blank, but can't seem to see any permissions issues with the process. I have been using TMPDIR, and PrivateTmp etc but have not found anything that changes the result yet.

[beardhatcode]

I put the call in a systemd preStart and got:

/nix/.../piper: error while loading shared libraries: libonnxruntime.so.1: cannot enable executable stack as shared object requires: Permission denied

In NixOS I had to:

systemd.services.wyoming-piper-base.serviceConfig.MemoryDenyWriteExecute = lib.mkForce false; # fix cannot enable executable stack as shared object

(I'll make a PR for that in nixpkgs soon™)

For non NixOS users, you might want to look into the error message above to see what you need to do to fix it

[jalla2000]

It seems that in handler.py, output_path = (await piper_proc.proc.stdout.readline()).decode().strip() never ends and does not return the output_path.

I think it does end, but the piper binary never prints a filename. I think maybe older versions did. It would probably be much better if wyoming-piper used the -f option and specified the output filename itself, instead of relying on piper printing the filename to stdout.

[beardhatcode]

I think it does end, but the piper binary never prints a filename.

Indeed, for me it ended immediately without writing stdout but only writing "cannot enable executable stack as shared object requires: Permission denied" to stderr which is not captured by the code.

[jalla2000]

Indeed, for me it ended immediately without writing stdout but only writing "cannot enable executable stack as shared object requires: Permission denied" to stderr which is not captured by the code.

Ah, yes. There doesn't seem to be much fault handling. handler.py should check the returned filename, and if it doesn't exist (could be empty or nonsense), it should print stdout and stderr from piper, so we can get some indication of what's going on.

[martin3000]

I think it does end, but the piper binary never prints a filename. I think maybe older versions did. It would probably be much better if wyoming-piper used the -f option and specified the output filename itself, instead of relying on piper printing the filename to stdout.

I tried it already with a hardcoded output file argument, but that did not solve it. There is no output written to it.
I changed process.py so that stderr is writen to a pipe and found that my piper version 1.2.0 does not understand --json-input.
I'm confused now because it seems there is a python version and a binary version? But I don't have the binary version. In the .cpp there is an argument "--json-input", in the python version it does not exist.
I installed the binary version with

wget https://github.com/rhasspy/piper/releases/download/2023.11.14-2/piper_linux_x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf piper_linux_x86_64.tar.gz

and now it works.

[charlieegan3]

Edit: this was the fix for me on NixOS! I just missed something.

FWIW, I tried the NixOS change in NixOS/nixpkgs#402111 and I still get the same error.

I don't see:

> /nix/.../piper: error while loading shared libraries: libonnxruntime.so.1: cannot enable executable stack as shared object requires: Permission denied

My guess is that this is a different issue.

[iDazai]

I'm also getting a similiar error feed:

ERROR:asyncio:Task exception was never retrieved
future: <Task finished name='wyoming event handler' coro=<AsyncEventHandler.run() done, defined at /lsiopy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming/server.py:31> exception=FileNotFoundError(2, 'No such file or directory')>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/lsiopy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming/server.py", line 41, in run
    if not (await self.handle_event(event)):
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/lsiopy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming_piper/handler.py", line 112, in handle_event
    raise err
  File "/lsiopy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming_piper/handler.py", line 65, in handle_event
    return await self._handle_synthesize(synthesize)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/lsiopy/lib/python3.12/site-packages/wyoming_piper/handler.py", line 166, in _handle_synthesize
    wav_file: wave.Wave_read = wave.open(output_path, "rb")
                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.12/wave.py", line 649, in open
    return Wave_read(f)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.12/wave.py", line 282, in __init__
    f = builtins.open(f, 'rb')
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ''

I'm using a piper docker container on Unraid.

[CloudMass]

I'm seeing the exact same error. I think it might have started after updating Home Assistant to version 2025.9.

[jonasbkarlsson]

I'm seeing the exact same error. I think it might have started after updating Home Assistant to version 2025.9.

I use Home Assistant 2025.7, and see exactly the same error.

[iDazai]

Rolling back the piper version to 1.6.3-ls75 helped according to linuxserver/docker-piper#17 (comment)