Voiceover's English US Voices Are Rebelling... Please Help

By Gar, 30 October, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hello folks.
So... here's the situation I find myself in.
Back when iPad OS 13 was still in beta, we're talking beta 1 here, I put my iPad 6th gen onto the program and almost immediately I started having problems with speech. Those problems lasted until the final release, and are even still present in iPad OS 13.1.3 (I haven't had the chance to update to 13.2 and won't until Friday, but I doubt that will fix it).
I got an iPhone XR in August and, upon upgrading to iOS 13 on that device, I started to experience this issue on it as well. My iPhone 6S, the older phone that I had previously, does the same.
However, I borrowed my father's phone at one point (also an iPhone 6S) and tested it to see if I would get the same issue.
I did not.
I also borrowed my mother's iPhone 7+ and again, there is no issue.
For reference, below I have attached a few instances of voiceover weirdness. The first one just happened randomly and I have never heard anything like it before, but the second one is pretty much constant.
What I've done in each case is have voiceover read the entire piece of text, and then I have gone through it word by word.
Also please note I have already tried to backup and restore from iCloud on my phone. That didn't fix it. Nor did the same from iTunes itself on my Windows PC.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2uo619dbwmzfqxm/Wtf%20voiceover.m4a?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hpj1i5pfz61p6ly/Wtf%20voiceover%202.m4a?dl=0

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Comments

By AaronE on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

Is it possible you added some Speech Pronunciations unintentionally?

It sort of sounds like 'on' got replaced with '.on' and 'hello' with 'ello'.

You can check in Accessibility->VoiceOver -> Speech -> Pronunciations

By Gar on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

I'm positive. I know of one or two other people who are also having this problem. They can't figure out why either. Besides... I haven't even been in that area of the settings app in months.

It's not just a pitch change. It's... it's voiceover just goes completely haywire, period. That particular piece of text would not read properly at all, to the point where it literally sounded like voiceover was just mumbling, or something of the like. I had to read over it word by word to figure out what exactly was supposed to be said because it was unintelligible in the extreme.

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

There not consistent and you will know what will happen. For me the issue was this morning, After restarting my iPhone XS voice Siri male stop working and later do not know why he came back. Strange. I do not know what Apple did to voiceover but is not consistent and reliable. Now if I planning to restart my iPhone I am concern about voiceover.

By Igna Triay on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

What voice are you using? Could it be something to do with the voice beeing used?

By Gar on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

I had that issue once on each device after updating. However, it only happened once. You should be fine, I think.

By Gar on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

In that particular instance, I was using Alex. However, I have tested it, and it seems to happen with the majority of US voices. At first it was only the enhanced ones... but the lower quality ones picked it up after a while too. It doesn't happen with any of the other dialects.

By sockhopsinger on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

Have you tried doing a complete reset of your phone and erase the whole thing, then set it up as a new phone? I know it's a pain in the neck, but if you haven't tried it, that may fix your problems. Just a thought.

By Gar on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

Yeah, I tried that. I backed up my phone to both iCloud and iTunes, then wiped it completely. The issue persisted even during setup.

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

You know we paid over $1000 for a iPhone and not working is not cool. This iOS continue to be the worse iOS. If this was a feature that sighted people, Apple would release an update ASAP. Since we are a minority, they are not worry about it to much.

By Gar on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

In reply to by Holger Fiallo

While I agree with you, to a point, I think it's at least somewhat understandable. It would be far easier to create an operating system rather than separating and enhancing one into two similar, yet different systems. I think that a fair number of bugs were to be expected, honestly.

By J.P. on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

Your backup might have corrupted. As sockhopsinger suggested, setting up as new might correct this.

By Gar on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

Unfortunate. Guess I have to deal with this for another two days. If I try and restore now, it'll take hours because the internet where I'm at is terrible.

By Gar on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

So, for some reason I looked through my pronunciations dictionary today. I found the problem, though why it was a problem in iOS 13 and not iOS 12, I don't know.
The problem lay in the fact that I had an entry for ".on" which was intended for website URL's, as well as .ca, because I always wanted it to say "C A" rather than "ca". Deleting both of them fixed it but why this became an issue in 13, I'm not sure.

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

WEll It is nice to hear good news.

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

Well she did it again. I just worke in Chicago. I turn my iPhone XS on and who show up? Yes, she did. Siri male has disappear again. This is to much. Unlucky 13 is becoming a major pain. Hope after one hour he will return. I do not want to hear from anyone about me calling it unlucky iOS 13 please. I am asking nicely.

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

Well after one hour he return. My Siri male voice is back and she went away from my iPhone and rotor. It looks like he needs to wake up, have coffee and start working.

By Gar on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 - 15:17

Please stop. Also... I think you're in the wrong thread? Heh.