macOS Golden Gate 27 Beta 2 Megathread

So, there is a new voice over feature accessed by holding shift after launching voice over.
It describes itself as this
VoiceOver is in Recovery mode with default preferences temporarily active. Use VoiceOver Utility to change preferences, as needed, then restart VoiceOver to exit Recovery mode.

THE VO RECOVARY FEATURE CAME WITH MAC OS 15 AND IS NOT

Nothing new here.

Still not fixed.

With this and the Siri app being a mess to use, I don't think this is going to be much of an update for us.

The command for opening control center (VO + shift + O) no longer works for me after update to golden gate.

I can confirm the VO-Shift-O command doesn't work. I've reported it in Feedback Assistant. There seems to be another bug where the Control Center is always open in the Window Chooser, and I can't close it no matter what I do.

Has the unusually long pauses between sentences bug, which I believe was introduced in Tahoe, been addressed in the Golden Gate beta? I just updated to Tahoe from Big Sir, having gotten a new MacBook, and am finding this bug to be very annoying. If it has not been addressed, I will report it. In the Applevis bug list, it says that this happens when using the say all command but I have found that it also happens when using VO plus P, to read a paragraph, in paragraphs longer than 900 characters.

This annoying issue is still present in Golden Gate beta 2. I keep updating my feedback report to say it's still present in new builds, but I have little hope this will be fixed. It's incredibly sad they aren't fixing bugs in what's supposed to be a bug fix release, but VoiceOver must not be very important in the grand scheme of things. I thought things were turning around for the better given the feature additions in recent macOS releases, but I guess not. I'm highly unlikely to purchase another Mac or any Apple product for that matter. At least I'll continue getting updates on my M4 Mac Mini until 2030 or 2031, so Apple has another 4 to 5 years to start fixing their software. I can dream, right?

“This annoying issue is still present in Golden Gate beta 2.”
Which annoying issue?
“I keep updating my feedback report to say it's still present in new builds,…”
What exactly is “this”?

“but I have little hope this will be fixed.”
Again, what is “this”?
Please, people, when describing an issue, be specific. Most of us has absolutely no idea what you are talking about when you refer to vague terms like “VoiceOver bug” or “ notifications bug” or “Safari bug”.
All of these operating systems are billions and billions (if not trillions) of lines of code, you could be describing 2500 different issues.

My comment was in response to the last one. I thought it was clear based on the order of the thread, but I'll update the title.
I realize these systems are very complex, but it seems to me there's a clear lack of prioritization when people report the same bugs for years and clearly demonstrate how to reproduce them. It doesn't help Apple might as well be a black hole in terms of communication.

Because here's the thing. I don't know if I'd say they're *long* pauses, but I have had things, in both Preview and TextEdit, where I'm reading stuff and:

It will read
like this
with pauses,
in parts
of sentences.

But so far as I can tell, switching windows and switching back again solves it. It seems to be pretty temporary and I have no idea in the depths of hell how to go about reproducing it, or what might be causing it. I assumed something like line breaks or other formatting, but I haven't dug into the specific texts where it happens to figure out if that makes any sense or not.

So now I'm curious. Is this what we're talking about? And whether it is or not, how do we reproduce these long pauses? I've got a Mac running Tahoe, as it happens. Hit me with some steps. I won't be able to solve anything, but at least I'll know exactly what we're talking about.

I notice this when reading large blocks of text with VoiceOver's say all VO-a command. Press VO-a and observe a slightly longer than necessary pause between sentences. If you use the VoiceOver cursor to read the same text, those pauses aren't present.

I pretty much only use arrows with or without the VO command when I have to, if I'm reading longer text. I'm on a Mac Mini M2, latest OS. Other than what I've mentioned, I can't say I've noticed any difference between 15 and 26. I guess I'm a unicorn or something.

I was thinking about this. SO what am I doing with the Voiceover cursor? So I have a text file. Am I hitting VO-a, stopping it, then hitting VO-right? Will that read the same thing? Because it doesn't always seem to. Sometimes it does paragraphs or larger chunks of text, but sometimes, it seems to do single sentences. At least in something like TextEdit, or maybe I'm thinking of the web. Anyway, got exact steps? I've got bunches of books as text files or RTF I can experiment with, one of them has to have longer paragraphs. Or does this happen with any paragraphs?

For me, I can reproduce the long pauses any time I use the "say all" command. For example, I can perform the command on a webpage, and hear unnaturally long pauses between sentences in the paragraph, but if I focus on the same paragraph with VO-left and right arrow, such elongated pauses are not present.

Can someone post a recording of VoiceOver speaking a text where pauses are clearly an issue? Saying this because I am not seeing any sort of lag, reading with arrow quick nav with paragraph as navigation item is the same as VO+A. Pauses are the same.

In Tyler's comment, there *might* be a slightly longer pause between the two sentences if I do VO-a vs. VO-arrow. I'm using Eloquence, Reed, rate 70%, if that matters. I wonder if this affects different synths? Because I mean, I'm still not sure one is even there. If it is, it's obviously not bad enough for me to notice in normal usage.

OK, doing a bit of quick testing, yes, definite pauses with Alex, using VO-a, none with VO-arrow, the pauses in VO-a are replaced with the Alex breath noise. No pauses for Samantha or Susan, Samantha just says Samantha English, Susan says enhanced.

So if this is driving you crazy, switch synths. I have no idea if this is new or not, I'll take everybody's word for it, I can't stand Alex so I don't even know why it's in my voice rotor. So it's not something I would have particularly noticed, since I use Eloquence.

Please note I'm not saying switch synths like, there that fixes it, it doesn't, give Apple all the feedback about it. There's no reason I can think of for different synths to pause or not pause. I'm just saying, if it's really bothering you in daily usage, there's a pretty easy workaround until it gets straightened out.

Huh, interesting, it also affects eSpeak NG. So yeah, I have no idea what's going on, but it's definitely synth-dependent. ESpeak is pretty bad, my first sentence gets two fairly long pauses at least, because of vs., and it doesn't seem to like VO-a and such much either. But using VO-arrows, it plows right through stuff at its usual breakneck pace.

I'd say the simplest way to experience it for yourself is to add Alex and Samantha into the voice rotor. Then read a comment with VO-a, then that same comment with VO-left/right. You should hear it pretty easily. Actually Alex might work all by itself, since the pauses in VO-a are replaced with the breath noise, that's still kind of a pause but it's a noticeable difference.

Could this be related to issues with the community dictionary? As I understand it, there have been problems in the past with that particular feature of eloquence.

Following Tyler's instructions, I am definitely able to reproduce the issue with longer-than-expected pauses when using the "Say All" command (VO+A) on macOS 26.5.1. In my experience, it is synthesizer-specific and does not present itself with the Vocalizer voices. Incidentally, the Vocalizer voices are the only ones that have a dedicated "Sentence Pause" control in their settings.
The Alex voice demonstrates this issue particularly well, though you can reproduce it on Eloquence also.

That's just my luck. I know that many don't like the Alex voice but it is my favorite, I guess mostly because it's what I got used to on IOS and later on the Mac, and once I get really used to a voice I don't like switching. But at least I know that I can switch to a vocalizer voice and get rid of the problem. I should not have to do that but I'm a glass half full kinda guy and I'm thankful that at least that solution is available. Maybe this will make me nostalgic for my early IOS days. LOL

I find that this problem happens, not only when doing a say all, but any time I'm reading a paragraph longer than 900 characters in a text editing field. That happens if I'm using VO plus P to read the paragraph or if I'm using the next and current and previous paragraph reading commands in what used to be called the num pad commander. If the paragraph is shorter than 900 characters, it does not happen. If I am reading the exact same paragraph in Safari, it does not happen. I have no idea why those two things make a difference but they definitely do.

Is anyone running the beta on an external SSD? Because I'm running into a nasty Tahoe bug at the moment where I can't obtain a bootable 26.5.x on my external Sandisk.

Today my quick nav keys randomly stopped working in chrome, h for heading, l for link etc. I turned voiceover off and back on, thinking that might fix the issue, but it didn't. Restarted chrome, and that didn't fix it either. Only thing that worked was completely restarting my mac. I'd report the issue, but I don't know how to reproduce the problem. I was using the emoji panel before this happened, so maybe that had something to do with it, but I don't know. Usually the emoji's work fine. Anyone else randomly have this issue?

I enabled betas long enough to test installing to external media. I'm glad to report that the install issue I was seeing on Tahoe with my SanDisk Extreme 55AE Media is resolved in the current Golden Gate beta.

Will there be a new thread for beta 3?

I missed beta 1 and 2 and went straight to a clean install of beta 3. I can't figure out how to get type to SIRI to work. There is no longer a way to get on the SIRI AI waitlist, and spotlight absolutely refuses to route a spoken question to SIRI. So, "tell me a joke" opens the Music app to a song called "Tell Me a Joke," for example.

Speaking to SIRI works fine, however. It's just type to SIRI that's broke.

Have you asked SIRI?

Also, have you asked Chat GPT?

You might be pleasantly surprised . . . or not.

Good luck,

Bruce

Is text editing any better on Golden Gate? Are there any early signs for a fix for QuickNav?

I have just installed Scrivener on Beta 3.

I have not yet tested move by paragraph, which is one of my huge issues.

The other major issue for me is that VoiceOver occasionally skips the first few words or characters of what it speaks. It's too early to say if this issue is resolved yet.

ChatGPT tells me that when I type into spotlight, I should click the "ask SIRI" button (there isn't one) or hold down the Command key (which does nothing).

I'll repeat: Does anyone know how to use type to SIRI in Beta 3?

Don't bother. All LLMs I use seem to have a lag and you have to push them to dig for information. If it is new, like betas, the information might just not be there and so it will make something up.

Sorry this doesn't help the type to siri issue. In the meantime, I believe spotlight should ship more complex requests to Siri now, command space.

Did you get Siri speaking back with type to Siri? This is one of my main frustrations with the siri app as it has different windows for input and output and no self-voicing.

I can talk to SIRI, and SIRI speaks a response.

I can't yet figure out how to type to SIRI, so I can't tell if it will speak a response or not. Type-to-SIRI has failed to speak a response under Tahoe, regardless of the prefer spoken responses menu setting.