Siri and VoiceOver sounding odd, and "Compact Voice" not working properly on iPad 3

By Anthony, 26 November, 2012

Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Hi! I am not a blind or low-vision user, but I make frequent use of Siri and am having some problems. This community was the most consistent result in my searches for answers online. I have been trying to get Siri and VoiceOver to use the non-compact version of the US English Samantha voice for the past two or three days and no matter what I do, it never changes. All other online answers have not worked for me. The voice still sounds like it has a sore throat. I was playing with the language settings and using Siri in other languages, but I got a really funny voice when I switched back to English. If I change to another language and region format the voice in the other language becomes clear again after about ten to twenty minutes (and I get the option to "Use Compact Voice") , but when I change both back to US English it still sounds muffled like the compact voice. The option to switch it to the compact voice is still there, but changing the option doesn't change the voice at all. I've waited for over three hours with it locked and plugged in to see if it would change, and it never did. An Apple support article says that it may take a few hours, but why are the other ones able to switch so quickly? I have rebooted, turned Siri and VoiceOver on and off, turned Airplane Mode and Wi-Fi on and off, used iTunes and iCloud to perform a backup, left it plugged in for an extended period of time, and left VoiceOver turned on while it was plugged in. Is there anything I can do apart from restoring? Do I just need to wait longer? I know I'm not alone, thanks to this great community, but nothing has worked for me. Thank you.

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Comments

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Thursday, November 22, 2012 - 19:21

Honestly, a lot of the issue that users have might be due to something getting mixed up when updating to a new version of the firmware. It doesn't happen often, but it does occur. Restoring does sometimes help, but there's no way to know for sure until you try it and honestly, it might not help as it could just be part of some weird bug. However, if you haven't come across others with the issue, it might be just a case where the firmware needs to reset itself.

By J.P. on Thursday, November 22, 2012 - 19:21

This issue has existed since 5. It usually happens after hard reset or restore. If you leave plugged in overnight with wi-fi on, it will resolve itself. Just make sure compact is toggle to on.. HTH

By Anthony on Thursday, November 22, 2012 - 19:21

Aha! It's not fixed, but I've left it plugged in for 8 hours and the "compact voice" option is gone. Hopefully that means something. Still odd that it's taking so long. I'll keep waiting. I don't mind restoring but I've read that if you restore a backup instead of setting it up as a new device, the problem gets restored with the backup.
Got it! I had to restore, but it works now. Thanks for your help. I was dreading it but it didn't take long. Now I just have to wait and see if it will restore my app folders...