Apple Releases iOS 17.2.1 and macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 With Bug Fixes

Thought my new 15 was defective as a result of this bug, but found the 11 had the same issue.

I did encounter a problem on my Mac, that is, when I used Safari to browse the web, the browsing mode by title often failed. I turned on quick navigation and one-click web quick navigation. This feature was stable in previous versions, but now it easily breaks down. I had to restart VoiceOver and turn Quick Navigation back on to get it working again. My Mac currently still has an intel chip. Have any of you encountered this problem?

Marvellous new rotor bug now in which, when you are dictating, it is frequently the case that, once the dictation has ended, reading by character only works by swiping up and not down, thus only in One Direction. The behaviour has to be corrected by doing something on the keyboard or jumping out and back into the edit field.
Apple is working hard to fix bugs, and I applaud them for this, but the constant introduction of new ones makes iOS 17 a continually frustrating experience at iteration 2.2.1.

Disclaimer: Apologies if this has already been addressed.

So, there is a small 'visual' bug in the Web Rotor Summary setting, under Verbosity in the VO settings for iOS. This one is a minor annoyance, and does not really affect functionality, but rather it is an aesthetic issue.

Where bug occurs:

When visiting Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Verbosity > Web Rotor Summary. This setting is designed to read aloud (on page load) how many elements are on a particular website. It will read something like, "12 Headings, 19 Links, 6 Buttons, etc".

The Bug:

When you go into this setting and make changes, then back out, VO will continue to read the previous setting.

Work-around:

Just back out of the Verbosity page, and then re-enter it. You will see your 'actual' changes to Web Rotor Summary.

Conclusion:

This is a stupid refresh bug, though I am not sure if its within VO or iOS as a whole. It is frustrating, but ultimately not a big deal. Still, it felt like it deserved a mention.

Thanks for reading. 😅

It doesn't happen only after dictation. It's doing the same thing after I type something with BSI.

iOS 17 was a major hit to my 13 Pro's battery life. Seems it always happens to someone, and this time it was my turn.

17.2.1 is a major improvement. I used to see almost 50 percent drop by noon, and the same over night. Now I'm seeing more like 20 percent. It makes a huge difference.

What’s BSI?
Thanks for confirming it’s happening though, always good to know it is a bugger not a device issue. I fear I shall have to send another email to Apple Accessibility next year.

I think "BSI" in this context refers to Braille Screen Input.

Question addressed to Carter Wu. Do you mean browse by heading? Give us a website and exact steps for reproduction, please.

I upgraded to 17.2.1 yesterday.

This morning, after booting my iPhone SE 2020, I held down the home button and asked SIRI about the weather. SIRI answered. Then I pressed the home button. The expected behavior was that the iPhone should go to the home screen. What actually happened was nothing, the phone continued to display the SIRI output and talk button.

Workaround is to sleep the phone with the side switch, then unlock it again.

This bug is reproduceable. Use SIRI after a reboot, and the home button doesn't work until you sleep and wake your phone.

Is this just a physical home button issue? Would be interesting to know if people experience it on non-home button phones.

I have not noticed this issue with the Home button on the SE2. I will say that, before upgrading to 17.anything, I reset the phone settings to factory.

Maybe that helped. Maybe not. 🤷🏼‍♂️

However, on the 15 Pro, I have the Action button currently set to run a very simple shortcut that, for all intents and purposes, gives me back a 'Home button'. What I have noticed, however, is that sometimes the Action button will be ignored by iOS in certain situations.

One example is the Notification Center. I have to use the 1 finger swipe up from the bottom to get out of NC. My 'Home button' is completely ignored here.

Another time is with the App Switcher. When opened, it is a hit or miss if my 'Home button' will work, or if I need to do the swipe up gesture.

i've iPhone SE2022, still using IOS 16, is IOS 17 the latest now work fine with VO? calls, messages, navigation... dectation?
or shall i wait more time to fix noisy bugs.
oh. battery performance, as our device has very small one ☺

I have an iPhone SE 2nd Gen a.k.a. SE2 or SE 2020. Mine works like it did 3 years ago with iOS 17.2.1. I almost regret purchasing the iPhone 15 Pro.

Almost. . .

On the other hand, Paul, mentioned above that his iPhone SE 2nd Gen is having a strange issue with his Home button.

I can tell you that 17.2.1 is incredibly fast and smooth on my SE2, so your SE3 should be even better.

Are there bugs? Yes, of course, but 17 is a lot better (now) than 16 was.

HTH. 😆

When I upgraded from my iPhone 10s to my iPhone 15 pro, all major bugs ceased. I still have a few minor bugs (I'm feeling very nervous saying this), but that's all, using IOS 17.2.

I have a bit of a weird one.
I'm using iOS 17.2.1 on an iPhone 14.
I restarted my phone on Friday, as I usually do. Mid-afternoon Saturday, I noticed that Siri and dictation weren't working. My phone wouldn't respond to "Hey Siri", "Siri", or using the side button. Also, the dictation button in message fields, search boxes, etc was dimmed.
Restarting my phone seemed to fix the issue, but it reappeared yesterday afternoon sometime. I've restarted once again, but if this is going to be my only work around it's going to get really annoying really fast.
Has anybody else encountered this particular issue?

Whenever I go to compose text, my text field is in focus, but my keyboard does not show up. I am able to type in braille and dictate but no keyboard.

Select the edit box by focusing VoiceO ver on it. then do a single finger double tap and hold on the second tap. Wait for a haptic bump. VoiceOv er should tell you your cursor position. If VoiceOver doesn't tell you the cursor position, do a single finger double tap without a hold. If you didn't hear the cursor position before, you should hear it now. Either way, whenever you do hear the cursor position, you should be able to find your onscreen keyboard in its usual location.

I've experienced this problem on and off for a significant amount of time. Five or ten minutes into a phone call, suddenly the person I'm speaking with can't hear me. We hangup and start another call only to experience the same problem after a comparable amount of time.

I thought I had this problem beat. I believed it was because I was going days without rebooting my phone. I started rebooting it on a daily basis, and the problem went away. However, after the 17.2.1 update, the problem is back.

I have searched the web and as far as I can tell, no one is experiencing this exact problem, or not discussing it. There are discussions of similar problems, but I seem to be unique in that everything is fine for the first several minutes, then boom, the person I'm speaking with can't hear me.

Some things to note about the issue:
* It doesn't matter whether I place or receive the call.
* It doesn't matter whether I'm in handset or speaker mode.
* It doesn't matter whether I'm using a Bluetooth headset, wired earbuds, or neither.
* There are no carrier updates waiting to be installed.
* The microphone works fine, verified with SIRI, Facetime, videos, voice memos, and the first several minutes of the call.
* The problem seems to occur more often with specific people. But doesn't seem tied to a specific phone type, carrier, or whether the person I'm speaking with uses VoiceOver.
* I have wi-fi-calling enabled. I have four cell bars. I use Verizon and have a Verizon network booster in my house. The problem occured prior to the network booster - that is, getting the network booster didn't fix the problem.
* I"ve contacted Verizon about the issue but they've been unable to address it.

Before anyone starts suggesting things for me to try, note that I've tried pretty much everything, so the things left for me to try are fairly ridiculous. I mean, I could forget all my Bluetooth devices, reboot my phone three times, stand on my head, swear allegiance to Cthulhu, and place my call at midnight on a full moon. And if I decide to try that, I'll be sure to post the video on TikTok.

Paul, I didn't notice you saying the problem occurs no matter your location. Does it only occur at your home?

That's right, Paul, it's suggestion time!

Be afraid.

So, I am assuming you are still on a SE2, running 17.2.1? I still have my SE2 as well, also running 17.2.1. So, I can hopefully help you troubleshoot. 🤞🏼

Having said that, I am going to provide a list of things for you to try. If you have already done an of these, well, do them again. 😝

Cellular Settings

1. Go Settings > Cellular.
2. Double tap Cellular Options.
3. Disable Low Data Mode and Limit IP Address Tracking.
4. Make a phone call or 3.
5. If everythings works, great. If not, proceed below.

VoLTE

1. Double tap on Voice Options (within the Cellular Options screen).
2. Ensure 'VoLTE' is on. This lets you do things while in a call, like looking something up, or sending/receiving multimedia files over Messages, etc.
3. Make a few phone calls.
4. If that does it, awesome. Otherwise, proceed below.

Carrier Exclusive

1. Go back to Settings > Cellular.
2. Navigate by heading to the heading named after your provider, I think you mentioned Verizon, so the heading should read as 'Verizon, heading'.
3. Just below the heading is a button labeled 'Network Selection'; double tap this.
4. Automatic should be selected, if not select this and back out of this screen.
5. Below the Network Selection is Wi-Fi Calling. Disable this (for now).
6. Below that is 'Calls on other devices'; disable this as well.
7. Make a few calls. If it works, fantastic! Otherwise proceed below. 😆

Cellular Network

1. Under the 'Calls on other devices' is a button labeled 'Cellular Data Network'; double tap this.
2. At the bottom of this screen is a 'Reset Settings' button. Assuming you either do not need a login here, or you do and know your credentials, you can double tap reset to reset the network settings for your carrier. Note this will NOT reset wi-fi, bluetooth, etc.
3. Make calls, hope this resolves it. If not, proceed below. 😅

Applications

1. Open your app switcher, and make sure that anything that uses camera or microphone are (not) running, or even in the app switcher. Some culprits can be: • Voice Memos • Facetime • Google Meet • Google Assistant • Anything related to Chat G B T

Siri

The last thing I can think of is Siri. Siri is, in a word, broken in iOS 17.x. First off, do (not) have it set to listen for 'Siri' without the word 'Hey' before it.

Do not!

Also, what I have noticed on my 15 Pro, is that, although I have Siri set to 'Hey Siri', it will also respond to 'Ok Siri'. Not sure if it hears the 'k' as 'hey', or if it's an actual new command word.

Either way, having just 'Siri' as a command word is craziness.

HTH. 😃

Bruce, I think it's safe to say it always happens at home, but I wouldn't swear in court. It's rare for me to make long calls when I'm out of the house, so I probably don't have enough data to say for certain.

Brian, thanks for the suggestions. If I have any leftovers after sacrificing the chicken, I'll pack them in dry ice and ship 'em your way. Yes I'm on the SE 2020 phone. It's interesting to note that many of the settings you listed don't appear as options. No way to control network selection, for example, or Volte.

But, turning off calls on other devices, and turning off wi-fi calling, I'm definitely giving those a try. With my Verizon network booster, I shouldn't need wi-fi calling, as calls connect to the booster and then go directly to the internet. So I'll bug a few people with some phone calls and find out if the Elder Gods are smiling upon me.

Interesting. Reason I asked is that I've had a similar problem on my old iPhone 10s, almost entirely if not completely in my home office/studio, before and after my wi-fi and cell booster upgrades. The problem vanished after I upgraded my phone to a 15 pro, however.

What I suspect and was very close to proving was the existence of tiny dead zones around my office desk chair. I say close to proving brcause I hadn't finished taking samples, but what I did pin down was two dead zones measuring approx 2 inches in diameter. If the iPhone XS happened to pass through a dead zone, the signal was lost. Very annoying.

Still, as we know, these micro dead zones can exist, as I'm sure you can appreciate.

Any chance you might move your desk a foot or so in, well, any direction?

It could also be happening when your neighbor parks his car in a certain spot. I'm serious. Personally, though, I'd go with the phase of the moon. It's full right now.

Wow, Paul, I did not consider carriers would have different settings from one another. I am on US Cellular, and my SE2 has (all) of those settings. I just assumed yours would too.

Sigh. . . .

That will learn me. 🤓

I never expected this discussion to turn into a horror novel. LOL.

Dead zones are a possibility, but the problem routinely happens when I'm within a couple of meters of the network booster. Also, it's just my audio that drops out. They can't hear me, but I can still hear them asking, "Paul? Are you there? Did your stupid phone drop out AGAIN?" I'd think dead zones would be a better explanation if the call failed entirely.

As for fixing the issue by purchasing a new phone, well now, that's a double-edged sword, isn't it? I almost have enough material on this topic for a standalone blog post.

After I adjusted several of Brian's recommended settings, of course all my usual call-problem friends are busy with family and holiday festivities. Not a single phone call yet. The tension is killing me.

Holidays would be the perfect time for technology to break on ya.

True story. 🫤

I just completed a relatively successful twenty minute call with my daughter. The problem is still present, but I now believe it's intermittant. She was unable to hear me briefly. But when I yelled "Oh, <expletive> <expletive>!," she heard that and everything was fine again.

Things I changed:
* Disabled limit IP address tracking
* Disabled wi-fi calling
* Disabled calls on other devices
* Changed listen for SIRI back to Hey SIRI
* Closed FB Messenger. The only apps loaded were Music, Calendar, Settings, and BARD Mobile.

Also make sure Music and Bard Mobile do not have active voice controls enabled.

What you described about your daughter's call leads me to suspect your phone's mic. Do not use your breath. Instead, use a can of compressed air to blow small blurts of compressed air at the microphone after wiping the mic with a clean micro fiber cloth. It sounds to me like your mic or its cover is clogged with lint or other debris.

On the other hand, if they can hear you but you can't hear them, forget it. Buy yourself a new phone instead, unless of course you'd like Apple to fix your old one.

Hello, yes I am talking about browse by heading.There is no need to find a special website to test, you can reproduce this bug by browsing this article on Applevis.First, press the left and right arrows to open the quick tour.Then, press VO Q to open one-button navigation.Finally press the letter H to start browsing.VoiceOver often fails to work as expected in this situation, as described in my post above.By the way, because I am not using an English system, the wording of some options may not be accurate enough, but I believe you can understand what I mean.

If anyone has any idea what to do about this could thez please help? Even if it's been said elsewhere on this site and I've missed it, help would be appreciated and I apologise for asking again. The issue where my Siri voices are deleted after a battery charge seems to happen much more regularly recently. I thought setting my Siri voice to the same one as I use for Voiceover was a work-around. It worked for a while but now it's no good at all. Does anyone have any ideas It's getting very, very annoying to say the least. Yes I could use a different voice and I probably will have to if this goes on, but apart from that—any work-arounds or solutions? Using an iPhone 13 and UK Siri voice 3 for both Voiceover and Siri. If these voices get debbleted again in the next week I'm stuffed as travelling with only mobile data or free wifi which wouldn't be man enough to redownload.

Regarding auto-deleting voices --

Has anyone tried making an Activity or 3 for additional voices?

Example: If you wanted to have one voice US, and one UK, instead of just downloading multiple voices the traditional way, download one through the Speech menu and one or more through the Activity menu.

Just a thought. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Re the Siri auto-deletion issue that keeps getting mentioned, it's not just occurring with the Siri voices in my experience on iOS, and also not just while charging (though I did think that at first). I posted about it with more details in another thread here:
https://www.applevis.com/comment/160369#comment-160369

My schedule isn't going to allow me to upgrade to Sonoma for at least a month. I'm simply too busy to learn new workflows.

A notification just appeared on my Ventura desktop. Here's what it says.

Upgrade to macOS Sonoma. Discover new ways to personalize your Mac, elevate your video calls, and get more done.

I had to laugh at this. My Mac is already personalized. Does anyone know what it means to elevate my video calls? Zoom seems to work just fine on Ventura. As for getting more done, I think it's a little ironic that this notification interrupted what I was working on.

Sorry for being snarky.

The call problems described previously, in which people are unable to hear me after a few minutes, hasn't been a problem since I turned off wifi calling and accept calls on other devices. I know I should test by turning them back on and see if the issue reappears, but I'm too busy loving the fact that my phone actually works like a phone.

I believe Sonoma had some new features for FaceTime Video calls. I know, for example, with iOS 17, we can send and receive Video Voicemail with FaceTime, so maybe this is carried over to Sonoma? I think I read somewhere that you could do certain emoji with facial/hand gestures. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Also, never upgrade to Sonoma. Just wait until macOS 15. Sonoma is too quirky, even on the new M3 Macs. . .

There are reports on other forums of Sonoma being force-fed to people who thought they'd closed the notification. It might be safer to get more info rather than just close using the actions menu, though I'm not sure how this plays out for VoiceOver users. So just be wary if you don't really want to upgrade that after closing the notification you haven't triggered the update. Check it in Settings. If you see it's downloading or preparing the update, restart with all haste; once preparation is complete and you're told to restart, it's too late and you're getting Sonoma, and you will have to restore from a backup if you want to downgrade.

Thanks. I've found that the only effective way to clear a notification (in Ventura) is to do the following:

1. VO+O to move focus to the notifications area.
2. Interact with it.
3. Navigate to the notification you want to close. Navigate around the notification and notice there's no way to close it.
4. Move your mouse there with VO+Command+F5.
5. Navigate around. You'll notice there's now a close button that wasn't there previously. Select it.

You've got to love mouse-centric controls.

Speaking of the actions menu, I bet that would also work. But I've got a system that works, and I'll stick with it until it breaks.

So, I do everything Paul does, except the last step. Rather, I press either Shift + VO + M to access the context menu, or FN + VO + Command to access the Action menu.

Either way allows me to access controls like 'Close' and others dependent on what the notification is for. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I always use the Actions menu for notifications, as I find it easier than routing the mouse pointer to and interacting with the notification, particularly if I'm trying to clear them in bulk.