Voice Over constantly stops talking on new Apple Watch

By Kristen, 30 May, 2023

Forum
watchOS and Apple Watch Apps

Hi there,

I recently got a new Apple Watch (I think either Series 7 or Series 8.) My previous watch was a Series 3/4, so this was an upgrade.

I've run into a strange bug with my new watch that never happened with my older watch.

Randomly, and without notice, Voice Over will stop speaking on the watch. Haptics will still work, the watch will still say Voice Over is active (if my sighted husband looks at it for me). Looking at the Watch app on my iPhone indicates Silent mode is "off".

The only way I have found to "fix" this is to have my sighted husband reboot the Watch for me. It will then work as normal for anywhere from a couple hours to a day before it goes silent again.

I've tried going into the settings on the Watch app and toggling off the ability to "cover for silence" option, as I figured I was accidentally covering it and silencing it. This did not work.

I've also wondered if it was erringly thinking I was doing a three finger tap on the face to mute Voice Over, as I've accidentally done that on the iPhone many times. But I could not get this gesture to work either when the Watch's VO was not speaking or when it was back to working after a fresh reboot.

Anyone run into this and have any thoughts as to what it may be? Is it a known bug? I keep eagerly hoping each new Watch OS update will "fix" it but it doesn't.

It's frustrating, as my Watch is unusable by me half the time and I can't easily reboot it without sighted help in this state.

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Comments

By Andy Lane on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 - 18:47

Mine will just freeze up, VO is still active and will eventually start speaking but it might take a good 10 seconds or more. Like you its incredibly frustrating and means most of the time I don’t bother wearing my expensive 8th gen Apple Watch as its more hassle than its worth because by the time its taken 10 seconds to not speak I could have easily taken my phone out of my pocket which is what I do, making the watch useless. I haven’t found a fix that will help you however you can reboot the watch yourself by holding the crown and side button together for about 10 seconds. I usually count to 12 then release and it’s done. Like you that will fix the problem for a few hours to a day. I still just don’t bother with it anymore though as it’s more hassle than its worth.

By Holger Fiallo on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 - 18:47

When it happens I do a restart. Do not know why is happening but is not regular thing. Also putting it on the charger returns voiceover.

By Kristen on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 - 18:47

Thanks for the tip on holding down the crown and button to reboot it - I didn't know that was a thing. Just got Voice Over back that way.

Putting it on the charger doesn't usually work to bring VO's speech back, either.

Is this a known bug that Apple is aware of? It has to be in the later versions of the Watch OS, as I was not encountering this with my last device that was too old to receive OS updates.

By Holger Fiallo on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 - 18:47

I am using series 7. I get this bug once in a blue moon.

By peter on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 - 18:47

This is similar to what is happening on some iPhones. When reading something, Voiceover will suddenly stop.

Waiting for a while sometimes fixes it. I've also found that telling Siri to turn off Voiceover and then turn Voiceover on again also fixes the problem. That is a lot quicker than rebooting the device.

This is particularly frustrating since, that is the main point of having a screen reader, i.e., to "read". If the screen reader doesn't read, what good is it? This seems like a major problem that Apple should address. It has been around for several versions of iOS 16 now.

For me, this behavior happens especially when listening to news articles in the Apple News app and swiping down with two fingers to read an article. VO often gets stuck when it comes to a link, embedded video, or some other non-text element in the article. The behavior isn't 100% reproducible.

Also, this behavior is not limited to the problem I just described. VO will also only speak part of an element that I swipe to. For example, in the Apple Stock app, Vo usually says something like "Dow Jones Industrial Average" followed by the price. Sometimes, however, when I swipe to that content, VO will only say "Dow Jones Industrial Average" and not speak the price.

As I said, very frustrating when we can't count on our screen readers to speak!

Anyway, it seems like this problem with Voiceover could be related to the issues you are reporting on the watch. See if toggling VO off and on again fixes the problems as it does for me on the phone.

--Pete

By Brooke on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 - 18:47

This was a bug that many of us dealt with for several months. It's stopped for me as of the latest watch OS update, which I think came out about a week ago. Have you checked to see if you have any updates that need to be installed? I honestly don't know if the issue has been fixed or if I've just been lucky for the past week, but before then, it was happening every few days.

By Kristen on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 - 18:47

Huh. I had updated a week ago and it was still happening, but I just checked my phone again and there is yet another update. I'll try downloading this one and see if that fixes it. Fingers crossed!