Why is the text-to-speech hotkey not working? For some reason, my text to speech isn't working. I don't know why it stopped working. It works when I manually click it, but when using the default hotkey alt+esc, it doesn't do anything.

I have no idea what happened. How can I fix this? I tried changing hotkeys, but the problem persists.
I have found a solution that worked for me without restarting (although restarting worked before when this happened)

My problem was that both the Hot Key or the contextual menu Right-Click -> Speech -> Start Speaking did not work within any application like Chrome and Text Edit

When I went to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Speech -> Play the button toggled to Stop as if playing but I heard no audio.

My Solution: I switched my default voice from Heather Infovox iVox HQ to Samantha then pressed the Play button. 

I got audio. 

Then I switched back to Heather and both Hot Key and contextual menu Right-Click -> Speech -> Start Speaking worked without quitting any apps or restarting my computer.