frequent speech loss

[aerospace1028]

Hello,
I'm having problems with frequent, sudden speech stoppages using orca with 
speech-dispatcher.  I'm not really sure if it's a SD problem, pulseaudio or 
something else entirely.

I'm running gnome-3, on an archlinux laptop.  I installed speech-dispatcher 
from git using the buildscript provided in the A.U.R..

Possibly relevant segments from /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf:

AudioOutputMethod "alsa"

# -- ALSA parameters --

# Audio device for ALSA output

#AudioALSADevice "default"

DefaultModule espeak

# The DisableAutoSpawn option will disable the autospawn mechanism.
# Thus the server will not start automatically on requests from the clients
DisableAutoSpawn


the contents of my /etc/asound.conf:
# Use PulseAudio by default
#pcm.!default {
  #type pulse
#}

#ctl.!default {
  #type pulse
#}

# Explicit PulseAudio device
#pcm.pulse {
  #type pulse
#}

#ctl.pulse {
  #type pulse
#}

# vim:set ft=alsaconf:


Because I have autospawn disabled, I added speechd to my daemons list in 
/etc/rc.conf.

When I launch startx from the terminal, orca comes up speaking at first 
(configured to use speech-dispatcher and espeak).  Eventually, but not with any 
pattern I can decern, sound just stops.  If I kill orca with "orca -f" and run 
in a terminal "sudo /etc/rc.d/speechd restart" I can bring orca back up 
with speech.  Sometimes everything's fine for a long time after that, but other 
times, I need to restart speechd every few minutes.

Looking through the logfiles in /var/log/speech-dispatcher, I can't seem to 
find anything explaining the error.  Around the time I restart speechd I 
find the following line in my /var/log/errors.log file:

Jul  7 09:12:21 localhost pulseaudio[3204]: pid.c: Daemon already running.


I'm not really knowledgable on sound-management software (pulseaudio, alsa, 
speech-dispatcher, etc).

Has anyone else experienced any similar issues, or have any suggestions on what 
might be leading to my current problems?                                        
  
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