hotword.pmdl filesize only 16kb

[rooferdave]

I use Rhasspy and alexaAVS using the snowboy wakeword.

I have followed all steps on three different computers, amd64(debian 11) pi4(debian 10) virtualbox(ubuntu 16 and 18) I created all record.wav files successfully using all computers except virtualbox couldn't get the mic working.
All attempts create the final hotword without errors aside from the fact the filesize is very small.
For instance... I tried different hotwords using the mentioned command, rec -r 16000 -c 1 -b 16 -e signed-integer -t wav recordX.wav. So the recordX.wav files that were created varied in size from 144kb for "go george" and 212kb for "hey Mario" the final hotword.pmdl size was 16kb and 76kb.(same result on all computers)

I installed all dependencies and followed the letter exactly.
I couldn't create the recordX.wav files on the 2 ubuntu versions running on virtualbox, however i copied the recordX.wav files from the other computers to ubuntu, same result final hotword too small
Tested wakeword with Rhasspy,
Does not work.

STUMPED. (getting sick of the old hotword I created before shutdown)........Go Bills. Not the team just the name
Thanks for any advice.