Bug with talk back on Samsung devices

By Apple-fan01, 12 July, 2026

Forum
Android

Hello AppleVis members,

After updating your Samsung devices to One UI 8.5, have you noticed a strange bug with TalkBack?

Whenever you are extensively editing with the keyboard—especially tasks requiring intensive use of the reading control to scroll between paragraphs, words, characters, lines, etc.—TalkBack will suddenly lose its ability to explore by touch. This makes it absolutely impossible to type anything with the keyboard. Since you can't explore by touch, the only way to navigate is by swiping on the screen, even for typing-related purposes.

I realize this issue is only present in One UI 8.5 and has not been present in previous Android versions.

Has anybody experienced this issue, and how did you manage to resolve it permanently? I did manage to get the issue to go away temporarily by itself, but it always comes back.

How do you resolve it permanently?

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Comments

By Brian on Sunday, July 12, 2026 - 14:40

Does this affect Samsung's version of TalkBack, or googles as well?
Does it affect other (third-party) screen readers on Android?
Not sure when One UI 9 is supposed to be released, but it will have Google's version of TalkBack on it, so here is to hoping this bug is fixed by then. 😇

By Trenton Matthews on Sunday, July 12, 2026 - 15:16

Considering when this issue happens at random, it makes all screen readers go odd.

OneUI 9 should definitely fix this odd happening.

By Brian on Sunday, July 12, 2026 - 16:34

When exactly does One UI 9 come out? Pretty sure I'll be getting my S26+ before then. 🙁

By Trenton Matthews on Sunday, July 12, 2026 - 16:40

Around the same time the Z-Fold/Flips come out.

So, for you, it won't be long.

By Apple-fan01 on Sunday, July 12, 2026 - 23:40

Haven’t tried other screen readers extensively on it as I don’t need them. However present on both versions of talk back.