Apple Releases macOS Sonoma 14.1, watchOS 10.1, and tvOS 17.1

Thumb drive ready.

That is good to know that I can stay on Ventura for a while. I appreciate hearing that.

However, it does feel like the end of the world, perhaps in a different sense. Twenty-four hours with Sonoma has instilled in me a sense that MacOS is directionless. It's a very unsettling feeling, the sense that an OS I've loved and trusted for fifteen years is adrift on the ocean with no one at the helm.

Are you people sure that the Safari Not Responding issue has not been resolved? I swear, in two days with Sonoma, I haven't seen it once.

Picture me thinking very hard about whether I really want to back out to Ventura.

While the "Not responding" issue is very much universal, I am just as sure that it is hardware/software specific.

Example: I am running an old Intel-based MBP with macOS Sonoma 14.1. I barely get the "Not responding" issue, but on Ventura, I got it, all. The. Damned. Time.

Is it fixed in Sonoma? Hardly. I do feel that it is getting there, and perhaps a few more (point) versions of Sonoma, or possibly macOS 15 will see an end of an era. So to speak.

Just remember, Paul, your particular issue was with the version of web rotor exclusive to the keyboard (VO+u).

So if you can live with the numbering and weird pause, then so be it.

Otherwise, downgrade for your own piece of mind.

I had set up an Activity for web browsing that adjusted some settings based on another Applevis post. I had been getting a lot of problems with this issue the last few days and then I remembered the activity. I turned it off and so far it's maybe been better. I still can't log into the Amazon Web Services Management console which means I have to revert to my Windows laptop to do my job but I was experiencing it all over the place.

There is a real dilemma about when is best to update. Problem with waiting until the last minor release is that if you do find something you will have no chance of it getting fixed. As opposed to an extremely slim chance. My feeling is that if a bug is identified early enough in a major version then it could get fixed. If it gets left then it never will. But on the other hand, I've learned the hard way that jumping in with the new stuff is not a great idea. Neither is being left behind. The thing is all the old versions have so many bugs too that I upgrade with the naive hope that Apple may finally get round to fixing some of them.

I'd feel a lot less anxious if Apple could just give us some feedback. I reported the option+left/right bug to them, at least one small instance of it, and I asked a few times for an update but they won't give one. I genuinely have considered just asking for my money back.

I had a little look at downgrading but got a bit nervous about it.

Does it require a USB thumb drive? That feels like a bit of a relic of the past.

The one problem with downgrading is that you will never know when it's safe to try again. So unless you are going to do the upgrade/downgrade hokey hokey for every new release, or just sit on Ventura for a while. Again, it would be so helpful if Apple told us explicitly what changes/fixes they are making to VoiceOver so we know if it's worth trying.

Anyway, Paul - if you do downgrade, please let me know how you get on. Also, if you do have time, please report the option+left/right bug to Apple accessibility so it's not just me hassling them.

Mr Grieves, yes, the process for downgrading involves a thumb drive. The steps are, roughly:
1. Get Ventura from the app store.
2. Use a Terminal command to turn that Ventura download into a bootable thumb drive.
3. Boot to the thumb drive to install Ventura.
4. Finally, use Migration Assistant to restore from the last Ventura backup prior to the Sonoma upgrade.

I've got a busy schedule today, so that means one more day with Sonoma while I consider my options.

I just played around with grouping and DOM order settings, but can't find anything that avoids the issue of VoiceOver implicitly interacting with things it did not previously interact with. Score one for backing out to Ventura.

So as long as I took a backup of Ventura before jumping in to the wonderful world of Sonoma I'll be fine?

Oh...

That would have been a good idea I guess.

I have been noticing quite a few issues today with things being interacted with in Safari in weird ways. Like I'll get stuck on a tiny bit of text when trying to navigate by heading and I have to mess around to escape before I can continue. And when you stop interacting with something there's always the chance you've got to start finding what you want all over again. I've had a few problems before, most noticeably with buttons but it seemed to improve. I think this wasn't related to my scrapping of the Web Browsing activity but it could be. But today it has been very sticky in Google and Jira/Bitbucket.

Just installed 14.1.1 and not really expecting any fixes. So far my expectations have been met b ut not spent any real time with it yet.

If you install a beta version is it easy to go back to the non-beta version? Or is downgrading from a beta to the previous public version the same as going from Sonoma to Ventura?

I don't know how to refer to 14.1. I. feel like I should call it the latest stable version but I can't bring myself to type that.

You can tell I'm getting desperate if I'm considering a beta.

I can't comment on how easy it would be to back out of a beta, but from an engineering perspective, I imagine it would work the same way as backing out of a stable release. Think like an engineer: They would make sure there's a way to back out of a bad beta build. LOL.

Though I did not manually fire off a backup before the Sonoma install, I do have Time Machine saving to an external HD. This should be all that's required.

Hi Friends, when ever I interact with a edit field VO starts intimating that cursor actions are available. Is there any way to turn off this behavior.

You mean text fields, such as the Subject box on this page?

I've not noticed anything like that myself. Only thing I could think to check would be to use VO=F8 to open VO Utility, then choose Verbosity and show additional speech verbosity options. In the table, you should see Text field. Mine is set to Low. (Well default as I have it defaulting to low). You could try changing that if you have it set to anything else. Or select Custom and untick the options you don't want in the popup.

The only thing I have notice with the subject field is that if I tab forwards into it, I hear "Article" once it's read everything else out. But if I shift+tab into it, I don't. But I normally use jump to next edit field so have never noticed that before. But don't think this is what you mean.

One other thing, there are some options under the Hints tab in Verbosity that could be worth playing about with.

For example "When an item has custom actions:". I have this set to Speak help and haven't noticed anything but it maybe just doesn't bother me so it's not registered. If it's on for you, maybe try turning that one off.

Knowing that migration assistant could take hours to execute, I started the Ventura downgrade last night, and as of this morning, I'm on 13.6.1. Notes about the downgrade process follow.

I had to boot into recovery mode to allow the system to boot from a thumb drive. VoiceOver is unavailable in recovery mode, so get sighted assistance with this step. I hope this setting is sticky and I will never have to repeat it.

Once you boot to the Ventura thumb drive, it's tempting to proceed with the install Ventura option. But if you do this, Ventura will refuse to install on a disk with Sonoma, and doesn't give you and option to back up and run Disk Utility. So, the first step is to run Disk Utility and erase your internal SSD. Then proceed with installing Ventura.

Regarding Safari Not Responding. I had been on Ventura 13.6, where the Safari Not Responding bug was rampant. After upgrading to Sonoma 14.1, I didn't see that issue at all. I downgraded to the current Ventura 13.6.1, and though it is a slight bump up from my prior 13.6, I still expected to encounter Safari Not Responding. However, much to my great joy, I haven't seen it yet after a couple of hours of use. I wish I had been taking careful notes of the Safari version, but I wasn't, so I can't say for certain. But I suspect 13.6.1 contains a version of Safari comparable to what ships with Sonoma, and the Safari Not Responding issue is, at last, resolved. Fingers crossed. Knock on wood. And yes, I'm aware this bug has been declared resolved many times in the past, only to continue to rear its ugly head. So I'll continue to be skeptical and watch for it.

BTW, MR Grieves, the odd option+arrow behavior is present in Ventura 13.6.1. So don't back out to Ventura expecting that one to go away.

Thanks for the info. I went back to my old Intel Ventura Mac and tried my Safari test with the location bar. I was surprised to also find that it had the weird behaviour.

I then opened up PyCharm and tried the test there and it definitely does not have the same problem in Ventura that I have in Sonoma. This is the same version of PyCharm.

I wonder if it is maybe PyCharm's fault, but it definitely wasn't happening on Ventura on my M2 before I upgraded. I guess I'll have to try reproducing the problem elsewhere.

What do you mean VO is unavailable in Recovery mode? Is this an Apple Silicone thing? Because I can assure you that, on my old Intel MBP, the only time I lose VO is in Internet recovery, and only then on the screen where you have to choose your network.

Hi grieves, I am getting that action prompt in all the edit fields. for example: Log in user name , Password , Safari smart search bar, all the text fields in the web site ETC.
I will adjust the verbosity and post the results here. Thanks for the guidance.

Hi Friends, After updating to MAC 14.1.1 the Cursor action issue seems to be resolved automatically.

Hi Brian. I have a 2018 Intel Mac Mini. To enable boot from USB, I had to run Startup Security Utility, which meant I had to boot into recovery mode by holding down Command+R. Once in recovery mode, I pressed Command+F5 to start VoiceOver. Nothing happened. I had to use the sighted spouse workaround.

@Paul,

Sorry to hear that. VO "should have" worked albeit, using one of the low quality voices; Fred, Bruce, or Cathy usually, and at a very low volume. Not sure why your experience was different, but thank the Maker for spouses, eh?

I think this may have originally come elsewhere on Applevis, but on the Double Tap podcast last night they were talking about an alternative for VO+J. I've never really used Windows Spots before, but apparently they have improved in Sonoma. So VO+] and VO+[ (that's VO and either square bracket) will navigate forwards and back through the hotspots. And for some apps, this seems to be similar to what VO+J does. I've not tried it much - it looks like it might be handy in Safari. In Chrome it does what VO+J does now sadly. But if anyone is getting frustrated with VO+J after Sonoma, it's worth a try to see if it helps. The example they gave on Double Tap was the Messages app which I don't really use on the Mac.

So this works, however you have to setup your "spots" before you can use them. So I opened Messages on my MBP, set a web spot in 3 places; the text field, the messages collection (think History of messages between you and whomever you are texting with), and Conversation collection (Think of list of every person you have messaged and saved on your device so far).
This worked really well. Like I said, the only issue I have, is having to setup the "spots" to begin with.

It is a small thing though... 🤷🏼‍♂️

The controls are as follows:
1. VO + Command + Shift + }. This creates a "spot".
2. VO + Command + { or } to navigate between "spots".

HTH. 👌🏼

Well I think there are auto windows spots and manual ones. If I look in Mail, Safari and elsewhere I do get plenty of ones that seem to be automatically added. I just tried in Messages (don't know why I didn't before) and I do seem to get a load there too.

Are you using Sonoma or are you still on Ventura? I believe it has changed in Sonoma.

From what they were saying on Double Tap it sounds like custom windows and web spots are system-wide not app specific, so if you wanted to use them across different apps you'd almost be forced to creating different activities for each so you could have different spots. But I've not gone there. I'm tempted to try in Safari or Chrome. I always liked Chrome's ability to jump between the address bar and bookmarks bar easily with VO+J and miss it.

Ventura. I was on Sonoma until a few days ago, then weirdness happened.
So something Ventura this way comes. To coin a phrase. 🤔

Apple: this is the most exciting and world-changing update of any kind we've ever done.

Me: Mostly harmless I suppose.

After my success with Sonoma, I finally took the plunge with iOS 17 and WatchOS 10 and so far so good. I could do without "are you sure you want to end this workout?" but if that's the worst thing then I think we've got away with it. Not really noticed anything better than v9 - most of the changes seem neither better nor worse, just kinda the same but a little different.

Yes, back to this again I'm afraid.

So the last couple of days I've been experiencing something even more strange with option+left/right.

I was editing some text in Jira and when I stepped through the words, VoiceOver was just speaking total nonsense. Not even words, just things that sounded a bit like words. Moving by character and everything is as I would expect.

This is something @PaulMartz noticed when reading a web page, but this is the first time I've come across it on my own.

In my case I couldn't seem to interact with the text and work that way.

Not sure if it's connected with some spell checker as it does mention misspelled words a bit. Inline auto-correct suggestions in Mail cause all sorts of weird behaviour but I've turned that off. (Thanks to Paul for that one)

I think just trying to edit any text on a web page is asking for trouble with VoiceOver.

Note that Option-Right is a function of the application, not VoiceOver. The application is completely responsible for what happens, including where the cursor is placed.

I do get that, although it makes no sense to me why every app should do things a little differently when editing text. (It drives me crazy that my most used 2 apps go to the start/end of a document with different shortcuts).

I don't really understand the relationship between me skipping the cursor over a word and VoiceOver reading out what has just happened. I'm guessing an app doesn't explicitly say "voiceover, read this word out" and more that there is a general concept of a text area with the cursor moving about in it.

As far as I know, there are no bugs with what the text cursor is doing itself, only what is being spoken out by VoiceOver. Whenever I move by character, the cursor is where I would expect it to be, not necessarily what I've been told. Although with the gobbledegook problem I have no idea what was going on.

If anything I'd say this was why it's such a painful problem. If the cursor was jumping around all over the place, it would get fixed. But if VoiceOver is consistently lying about what text is in front of me, then who knows if it will ever improve.

If it is a web app in Safari then I hold Apple responsible for that. It is possible that Jira is doing something funky but as Paul has found examples elsewhere on entirely different pages then it doesn't feel like it'ps an application thing.

I've no idea about my problems with PyCharm specifically. I think I mentioned before, I raised them with the devs, Jetbrains, and they said they had reproduced in Text Edit and Notes and filed bugs with Apple. But what I do know is that the exact same version in Ventura does not have the problem whereas in Sonoma it does.

I get the impression that Apple is a lot less concerned with being backwards compatible than Microsoft. And that's a good and bad thing. But things like this are so fundamental and important that they sholdn't be changing under our feet like this. I'd almost rather an application didn't start at all than just went peculiar. If Apple are going to explicitly and purposefully change behaviour then they should publish it so that everyone knows about it before it goes public.

At the end of the day, I just want things to work. I'm totally fed up of beta testing these expensive mainstream products and then it being up to me to point the finger at the right person so I know who is ignoring me.

Sorry, off I go again. Deep breath..... time to take up toga or something.....

I haven't investigated the MacOS interfaces, but, usually, the way it works is that the application sends caret movement events to the accessibility service. These events are then received by the screen reader, which reports the text passed over, or the text immediately to the right of the cursor, or whatever it's designed to do in that circumstance.

I would also suggest contacting Apple and opening a support case. this is not the same as sending feedback to Apple Accessibility - I mean, actually creating a support ticket and going through the entire process of escalating the issue as needed.

Someone at Apple will need to reproduce the issue and use accessibility API inspection tools to track down the cause. If I manage to reproduce the problem, I'll report a reproducible test case to Apple.

Again apologies for banging on about this all the time, but I have at least confirmed myself that the weird option+right/left behaviour is not specific to PyCharm. I opened up an Xcode project and the problem occurs there too. It also seems unrelated to punctuation settings.

I wonder if it might be related somehow to syntax highlighting. I did think about creating a colour scheme in PyCharm to remove the highlighting but couldn't figure out the UI. Either not accessible or I was just too stupid.

So I created a Text Edit field and pressed Cmd+B for bold, typed the word one then cmd+b to unbold then .two = "three" to see if that made a difference.

Well, it doesn't have the same problem but I found that VO wouldn't read the line at all if I moved up to it. It does if I then start selecting or skipping words but not if I just move the cursor up and down. If I switch to my Coding activity which has punctuation set to Full then it does read the line out.

Every time I look at this or of thing I am just more and more baffled.

If I get some time I will try to report that Xcode problem to Apple. Problem is this is company code so will need to find an open source project or something I can use as an example. Sadly I don't really know how to write Swift myself.

I guess I should also report the text edit problem sometime, but I don't really use it. Every time I do it ends in tears, so best to steer clear.