- When I press the Windows key and then press Escape without typing anything in the search box, NVDA still says "Search" when I press NVDA+T to hear the window title.
- When I press Alt+Tab to switch between open windows and release the keys once I get to the window that I want to switch to, I end up in the menu bar/ribbon and have to press Escape to leave it, as though Windows processes Alt+Tab as two separate keypresses instead of one hotkey, and probably takes me to the menus when I try to release the keys and release Tab before releasing Alt, which means Alt remains pressed. The Alt+Tab keystroke used to be treated as a single keyboard command on earlier versions of Windows, although I might have to double-check on my old Windows 10 computer.
- Likewise, when I try to press Ctrl+V to paste something, the item copied or cut to the clipboard does not get pasted and other stuff happens instead, depending on the situation. The Windows ding sound plays if I am in a folder and trying to paste a file or folder, or the cursor lands on whatever item beginning with "V", if any. If I am in a text field, the letter V is written, as if Ctrl and V are not related at all, and Ctrl just stops the speech and V actually types that letter in the text field.
- NVDA just becomes silent and I have to restart it for no apparent reason.
- Even worse, the system volume changes when I restart NVDA. When this happened a few minutes ago, I had lowered the volume down from 20% to 10% earlier and then had to restart NVDA due to this silence/unresponsiveness thing. When I pressed Enter on the Desktop shortcut to restart NVDA, though, the volume got back up to 20% gradually, within a second or less.
By Enes Deniz, 5 February, 2025
Forum
Windows
Comments
First steps I'm sure you've already done.
1. Make sure you've updated to the latest version of NVDA.
2. Try running the com fixing tool: press NVDA plus n, then press t, then arrow down to com fixing tool and press enter, it should run and then you should be presented with an ok button, press that.
3. Clean your alt key, it might be durty.
NVDA is free so it's great in that way but this are issues that pop up from time to time.
I've had NVDA go silent on me so i've had to restart it.
Oh, also make sure you're up to date with your windows updates.
You could also try posting an issue on their github, if you need help with that; let me know.
As much as i like NVDA, it does have issues like this from time to time that make me think of going back to JAWS but then I realise how much it costs and I don't do it.
Suggestions
Just some suggestions for you to try.
1. First and foremost, try to do everything you said you have troubles with while using NVDA, while using Narrator.
2. Ensure you are not running any add-ons. Not a permanent solution, just for troubleshooting.
3. If you are able to, try an alternate keyboard.
4. Brad's suggestion, Press NVDA + N, then T, then arrow down to "Run com registration fixing tool".
5. If all else fails, uninstall NVDA completely, then reinstall latest version from nvaccess.org.
Best of luck.
synthesiser
NVDA just becomes silent and I have to restart it for no apparent reason. I get that too. It's like it crashes. Are you using a synthesiser other than eSpeak? I don't use eSpeak, so I'm wondering if it's the synthesiser I'm using, but the trouble is, I much prefer the synth I'm using to read stuff. ESpeak is OK, but not for long periods of time. I notice this doesn't happen to me when I'm reading a long document, but when I'm navigating round the system and doing lots of tasks in a short time, this is when it crashes. I'm afraid I can't help you with your other issues. Brian and Brad, thanks for the com tool thing, didn't know about that. I'll try that when I get issues. I've got JAWS on my system, and I pay for the upgrades just in case something I need to use works better with NVDA, but I much prefer NVDA and have done for God knows how long now.
Re: Synthesizer
I have a few options with my NVDA installation, but that's because I like variety. For my main driver, I use Vocalizer TTS engine, and the Samantha high-quality voice, which sounds so much better on my PC than it does on my iPhone, haha. When I am doing code related stuff, I use the IBM TTS engine, and the Glenn voice, which is an alternative to eloquence, and the voice I use sounds sort of like Eddie with eloquence.
I also have a little registry tweak which allows me to use the Cortana voice with NVDA. And besides the normal Windows 1 Core voices, and SAPI5, I also have Microsoft Speech Platform installed, and I have the Cira Pro voice on that. Cira Pro is kind of like Cira Desktop from SAPI5, but more responsive like Cira from the 1 Core voices.
Any crashes?
Hi Brian,
How do you find the performance in general. Does it vary between synths? I've got IBM Eloquence too, and it's my primary synth. It freezes every so often.
There are times when NVDA…
There are times when NVDA will go silent for a moment or two. Typically this is when something is loading within Windows, and really there's nothing you can do except wait for Windows to finish loading whatever it is loading. I would like to offer you a simple add-on, that will make life much better for you while using NVDA. It is a small add-on, you can get directly from the add-on store (NVDA + N, then T, then a). The add-on is called "Tony's Enhancements", and it has a couple of little features that make NVDA just a little bit better.
One of the features allows NVDA to play a small little background sound whenever windows is loading, really helps for those times when NVDA "go silent" and you are not sure of what is going on. Another feature has the ability to adjust the process priority of NVDA as a whole. I personally run my NVDA in real time, using the add-on. It makes a difference!
@Brian I've just installed the addon.
I'd heard of it but never thought to use it, this should be great for when NVDA/windows is busy!
The rumble
I don't really have a better description than that, the sound effect honestly sounds like a tiny rumble. When you hear it, you know Windows is loading something in the background. I promise, it will help when you think NVDA is maybe frozen, or locked up, or whatever, and it turns out to just be something windows is loading in the background.
@brian
I really like that you can put NVDA as real time.
Honestly, it's the only way…
Honestly, it's the only way to run NVDA. Just my own humble opinion of course. :-)