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VoiceOver is not speaking after migrating

By Ramy, 9 August, 2022

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hello all:
After i migrated my data from my old mac mini to my new Macstudio,i'm having a very strange issue, VOice over can not speak at all, and i feel, just feel that this is related to my keyboard not VOice over itself, and will explain why.
After migration was completed, i can not use my keyboard to click on done at all, even voice over was not speaking, do not know why, but with sited assistance, i clicked on done using an actual mouse, and my mac restarts,
BTW all my sound cards are working, audio output is ok, because am listening to Audio effects from my mac studio speaker.
After restarting,VOice over does not speak at all til now,and even my keyboard can not allow me to move, it only produce a strange sound like ding ding, again, with sited assistance, i wrote my password, and am in,
can not perform some keyboard shortcuts, and each time i do so, i got the same sound, but when typing separate letters, they worked, but still VOice over is not working,
sometimes, i hit VO+SHift+f11, and the screen curtain changed from on to off etc, and sometimes no,
and now, do not know what to do exactly, VOice over can not speak, can not even go to mac menu to restart etc.
Is it something on VOice over? or a security that do not allow my keyboard to control my mac or what?
Sorry for my long post, but just need to say what happened exactly.
ANy help will be highly appreciated
thanks in advance

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Comments

My guess

By Vsevolod Popov

1 year 3 months ago

Hi, I am only guessing, but maybe the issue is that the voice that you used on your old device wasn't downloaded to a new Mac? Have you tried to go to VO setting with a sighted assistant and changing voice there? I think that might be an issue because you can get the same behaviour on iPhone after restoring from backup or so.

locating Voice over VOice with sited assistance

By Ramy

1 year 3 months ago

Hello:
SO, if i have sited assistance, how can i do this?

Locating voiceover utilities

By Vsevolod Popov

1 year 3 months ago

You should go to utilities folder and find VoiceOver preferences there. Then go to voice tab and change it.

Speech always hang

By Ramy

1 year 3 months ago

Hello:
Speech always hang, going to: Utilities+voice over+speech, always hang.
is there a solution?

This is a known issue

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

1 year 3 months ago

Lots of us have experienced this issue. The salution seems to be don’t use migration assistant. Someone posted about this, with their Mac having to be replace by Apple, with the same results on the new Mac. So call Apple, get your Mac replaced, and never again use migration assistant!

Problem solved, but am very annoyed

By Ramy

1 year 3 months ago

After more than 8 hours of invistigations, I solved the problem with 2 of my friends + my GF.
i was using Acabella voices, and when switching to m1, they do not support the processor or even the system at all, so, VOice over stuck, even when i export Preferences from my Old VO and put them on my new mac studio , same results, i even reset my VO TO factory defaults, with no luck,
the only solution is that i Deleted Both Sharon and Leila VOices from my User library, and after that, it works.
BUt why and how apple can not find a way that can give us cautions that this app will not work on this machine? how is that?
i migrated using the apple migration assistant, and i think it is not difficult if they can know weather this app will be ok or not.
ANyway, Thanks for your replys, and hope it will not happen with anyone else.

Accapela voices on macOS

By Daniel Angus MacDonald

1 year 3 months ago

Accapela voices do not work on macOS any more. The company who made them compatible, has stopped that work. AssistiveWare, has said the last version the infovox ivox accapela voices are compatible with is Big Sur, and they will not make them compatible with Apple Silacon Macs (M1 and M2). So if you want to use the accapela voices with macOS, you have to permanently stick with Big Sur, and get an intel based Mac.

They did not check

By Holger Fiallo

1 year 3 months ago

I do not think apple even uses VO to check if it works. Probably most of them do not even know about VO.

Same Experience Here, but Problem is Migration Assistant

By Portland Chris

1 year 3 months ago

Club AppleVis Member

I upgraded to the M2 MacBook Air from a 2013 model MacBook Air last week and struggled with the identical problem. I used Migration Assistant going directly from the old Mac (OS 11.6.7) to the new Mac (OS 12.4), first transferring all 5 types of data, then when VO refused to speak, I erased to factory settings and did it over again but excluded System and Network Settings from the migrated data, but with the same result. I have no A Cappella voices installed and simply use Alex, and no external keyboard is involved. My sighted friend told me that when VO was activated, VO-Shift-F11 did turn the screen curtain on and off, but no speech. Volume was at maximum, as evidenced by her looking at the control and the obvious evidence that I could make the machine beep with certain key combinations I cannot remember now. The refusal to speak happened when I turned VO on with VO-F5 and also when she turned it on in System Preferences, so that made no difference either. As a last resort, I decided to Erase All Data and Return to Factory Settings (now a command on the Apple menu) one more time and simply bypass the Migration Assistant altogether. Like magic, VO gave me no more problems. I'm using the machine now, and all operates exactly as it should. I migrated my data over manually, installed a few pieces of software myself, and had to set some preferences and add my mail accounts back in, but all iCloud information of course came over just fine, and the new machine is awesome. No strangeness any more. Conclusion: I upgraded from and to different hardware, had no special voices installed, and no external keyboard involved, but had the identical experience whenever I used Migration Assistant. There is something fatally wrong with Migration Assistant that disables any speech output from VO and I could find absolutely no way to bring VO voices back to life in any way. Skipping Migration Assistant eliminates the problem. It is not faulty hardware, but specifically Migration Assistant.

Migraine

By Holger Fiallo

1 year 3 months ago

Maybe VO has a migraine?

Strange but ok

By Ramy

1 year 3 months ago

SO strange that you had the same issue, and great that you can solve.

Reinstalling macOS

By Tyler

1 year 3 months ago

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

As it happens, I saw a video discussing migration from one Mac to another last week, and while VoiceOver was not mentioned specifically, the presenter noted that he'd seen people who'd used Migration Assistant have a variety of problems afterword. As said in the video, you may be able to resolve these issues by reinstalling macOS while keeping your data intact, eliminating the need to migrate manually. I'm not sure, but you may be able to do this without sighted assistance by starting up in macOS Recovery and trying to use VoiceOver there.

HTH

This has happened to me on…

By Troy

1 year 3 months ago

This has happened to me on an IPhone as well, so I would go as far as to say do not use the migration feature on any apple device until this can be fixed which who knows when.

can not stop Migration

By Ramy

1 year 3 months ago

Even if it has some problems, but we can not ignore that this is one of the best features in APple, really.

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