It was suggested I check out the ‘mark-ii and mark-ii/qa branches’. I’ve never used Mycroft from a branch before, and I use git, but just the basics. Here’s what I tried:
$ sudo service mycroft stop
$ rm -fr mycroft-core/
$ git clone -b mark-ii/qa https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core
Cloning into 'mycroft-core'...
...
Resolving deltas: 100% (544871/544871), done.
So far so good. Then I start to build. I’ve always answered ‘Y’ to all the questions. Should I now answer ‘N’ to the first question?
$ cd mycroft-core
$ time bash dev_setup.sh
Do you want to run on 'master' or against a dev branch? Unless you are
a developer modifying mycroft-core itself, you should run on the
'master' branch. It is updated bi-weekly with a stable release.
Y)es, run on the stable 'master' branch
N)o, I want to run unstable branches
Choice [Y/N]: N - using an unstable branch
...
I did answer ‘N’ and see I’m in a ‘detached-head’ state. OUCH, sounds painful 
I test a recording and a playback - both work fine. I start Mycroft, and say “Hey Mycroft”, but it does not update any log file. I start it in debug mode and now it responds to “Hey Mycroft”, but with this:
10:51:27.710 | INFO | 4164 | __main__:handle_record_begin:41 | Begin Recording...
10:51:29.245 | INFO | 4164 | __main__:handle_record_end:49 | End Recording...
~~~~<urllib3.connection.HTTPConnection object at 0xffff7c0162e0>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno 111] Connection refused'))
^--- NEWEST ---^
History ========================================================== Log Output Legend =================================== Mic Level ==
>> It seems I cannot connect to the Mycroft servers. Please wait DEBUG output
few minutes before trying to speak to me.
Any thoughts? Would it be worth trying the mark-ii branch?
Thanks.
-Mike M