So I have been using handy-bin quite often to assist me in posting and other tasks, becoming essential due to my age and a mild disability.
Then it just suddenly stopped inserting its dictated text at the cursor while in the process of converting voice to text.
The converted text still shows up in history but is not inserted at the cursor on screen.
I went through the documentation but nothing about this, although the documentation seemed quite good.
I have a reasonably standard XFCE4 4.20.2 desktop Manjaro installation with Intel Core i9-11900 cpu, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics, 64GB ram and 4TB persistent memory. I keep it updated daily.
I am running handy-bin 0.8.3-1.
After 60+ years in IT, some of my marbles have rolled away and I could really use some help in fixing this little annoyance.
Display setup
You are running:
X.Org 21.1.22
XFCE on X11
Resolution: 3840Ă—2160 (4K)
$ nvidia-smi
Fri May 22 12:14:04 2026
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 470.256.02 Driver Version: 470.256.02 CUDA Version: 11.4 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... Off | 00000000:01:00.0 On | N/A |
| 0% 49C P8 16W / 170W | 2480MiB / 12020MiB | 15% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 1049 G /usr/lib/Xorg 1331MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 1186 G xfwm4 3MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 6183 G /opt/zen-browser-bin/zen-bin 122MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 25137 G /usr/lib/firefox/firefox 445MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 26526 G ...-uuid=3190708988185955192 111MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 139953 G ...-uuid=3190708988185955192 210MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 173928 G ...-uuid=3190708988185955192 250MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 252097 G /usr/bin/nvidia-settings 0MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
I will just add that the handy-bin package may not be working due to it being compiled on a current Arch system, whilst the OP here is on Manjaro Stable branch. Possibly one or more of the packages it was built against on Arch is a different version in Manjaro’s Stable branch.
So, if @keepitsimpleengineer finds that the speechnote Flatpak doesn’t meet their needs, they could try switching to Manjaro’s Unstable branch, which is more in alignment with Arch, and see if handy-bin works after the branch change.
Alternatively, they could try building the AUR’s handy package on their Stable branch system. Hopefully compiling it against Stable branch packages/libraries will get it working successfully.
Note though that, due to it not being pre-compiled, handy will take longer to build than handy-bin, and it will likely require a rebuild after most system updates.
pamac info handy
❯ pamac info handy
Name : handy
Version : 0.8.3-2
Description : Open source and extensible speech-to-text application that works completely offline
URL : https://github.com/cjpais/Handy
Licenses : MIT
Repository : AUR
Groups : --
Depends On : alsa-lib cairo gcc-libs gdk-pixbuf2 glib2 glibc gtk3 hicolor-icon-theme libevdev libsoup3
openssl vulkan-icd-loader webkit2gtk-4.1 libappindicator-gtk3 gtk-layer-shell
Optional Dependencies : wtype
xdotool
Make Dependencies : appmenu-gtk-module bun cargo clang cmake git nodejs pkgconf pwgen shaderc vulkan-headers
Check Dependencies : --
Provides : --
Replaces : --
Conflicts With : handy-bin
Maintainer : barbuk
First Submitted : Tue 20 Jan 2026 21:00:40
Last Modified : Fri 01 May 2026 21:52:41
Votes : 0
Out of Date : --
It’s been a long time since I tried Handy. I’ve had the issue you’re describing from the very beginning. The first attempt works, but after that it rarely works, if at all.
I just compiled Handy myself, but the problem persists.
So what doesn’t happen is anything after using the key combination to incite transcription of audio. So I attempted to change the key combination in setting, and that failed, being also non responsive
I have taken the liberty of seeking a few possible alternatives to Handy STT; this is purely a cursory list – whether each (or any) of these are fit for purpose or easily available to Manjaro will likely need more research.
