I'm building a growing list of ways to kill VoiceOver using Zoom. Here are two that I know of. I'm unsure how to report these issues to Zoom, as I have the free plan. If you know of other ways to break VoiceOver using Zoom, or can help bring these issues to Zoom's attention, I'd appreciate it.
Use the Find Feature
One way VoiceOver users jump to controls quickly is using the VO+F find utility. For example, while in a Zoom meeting, you might want to quickly find the button to open the chat panel. So you press VO+F, type chat, and press enter. After that, nearly anything you do results in "Zoom US Not Responding". FortunatelyYou can Command+Tab away, and once you do, VoicdeOver behaves correctly with other apps. However, restarting VoiceOver doesn't restore Zoom to proper behavior. The only recourse is to Force Quit Zoom and re-launch your meeting.
Zoom Meeting Recording and Fullscreen Keynote Presentations
If you share your screen and play a Keynote slide presentation, this all works fine. But once the host turns on meeting recording, VoiceOver crashes and there is no way to restart that I know of. Zoom is still running, you're still in the meeting, but VoiceOver commands do nothing. Even if the host shuts down the meeting, VoiceOver is still dead. I had to hard-cycle the power on my Mac to restore a usable desktop.
I encountered this issue for the first time just last night. There might be some workflow that doesn't break VoiceOver, but I'm unlikely to try it again after this experience, so I'll never know.
Random Closing Thoughts
I want to communicate via Zoom the same way I see sighted people doing it every week. I wish the flagship video communications tool allowed persons with disabilities to communicate on a level playing field with our sighted peers, but that's not the case. It's very frustrating.
Thanks for letting me rant. I would appreciate hearing about the best ways to raise these issues with Zoom. Thanks.
Comments
Zoom Meetings and VoiceOver issues
Hi,
As a telecom engineer, I have "connections." Let me see if I can get any suggestions.
But first, a couple core bits of info every troubleshooting engineer is going to ask:
1. What platform are you encountering these issues on? Mac? iOS? iPadOS? What version of the operating system are you using?
2. What is the release version of Zoom you're using here? Are you allowing it to auto-update?
Thanks.
Teams let's you share screens.
Not helpful for Zoom I know. I'm just throwing this out because I tried it recently, to share noises from Logic, and my wife verified that you also get the screen. So in case you needed to do something that requires screen sharing, Teams could be an option. I hope they fix Zoom though. I've never used it but it's ridiculous that these issues are there, Esp. the screen sharing one.
Answers
I'm on Zoom Version: 6.5.9 (61929) and I have never altered the default update setting. I'm on current release MacOS.
I would wager the screen recording issue is related to the dialog that tells me screen recording is in progress, prompting me to click okay. I bet this VoiceOver hang issue would vanish if I could simply configure Zoom to never display that dialog. I don't think Zoom developers have a clue how inconvenient those little dialogs are to screen reader users. They're difficult enough to interact with under normal circumstances. But when you've got a fullscreen slideshow displayed on the desktop you're sharing in Zoom, they are outright unusable.
Accessibility shortcut
Have you tried using the accessibility shortcut when that happens? To do so just triple-press the TouchID button, or whatever button stands in its place, while holding the Command key, choosing VoiceOver if the Accessibility Shortcut menu appears, and that should kill a non-responsive VoiceOver instance after a couple of seconds, or turn it on if it isn't even running.. If VoiceOver is not available in the Accessibility Shortcut menu, another option is to triple-press TouchID like before, but this time while simultaneously holding the Control and Option keys, which should activate the Universal Access Control where you can configure the Accessibility Shortcut menu.
Command+Option+F5
Thanks João Santos. My Mac Mini doesn't have a Touch ID. I haven't seen one since the iPhone 8. I open universal access control with Command + Option + F5. That will preclude adding the VO key combination, as I already use VO+Command+F5 to bring the mouse pointer to the VoiceOver cursor.
But, next time I'm in Zoom, I'll hang VO with the Find feature to test this shortcut and see if it helps.
TouchID is current tech
TouchID is current tech on macOS, I'm typing this on a 2024 USB-c Magic Keyboard with keypad and TouchID connected to a 2025 Mac Studio, two out of the three variants of the USB-c Magic Keyboard have it, and the variant that doesn't have the TouchID fingerprint sensor itself still has a key in its place that serves exactly the same purpose as far as accessibility is concerned. This key is located where the Eject key used to be on older Magic Keyboard versions so it's possible that pressing Eject on those keyboards will produce the same key code, and the relevance of this key is that it's not affected by any input taps currently active on your system so it always works, plus both Universal Access Control and the Accessibility Shortcut have their own screen-reader independent of VoiceOver so with this key you can always regain control over your computer even if VoiceOver is not cooperating.
Re: Magic keyboard.
On the one I have, that key, just to theright of F12, locks the Mac or logs out the current user, not sure which, and does nothing else, so far as I can tell. I disabled it in Terminal. How is this supposed to work for some other kind of shortcut?
Thanks for keyboard info
Thanks for the information about Apple's keyboards. I've been using the same non-Apple ergonomic keyboard for over a decade, controlling Mac, Windows, and Linux boxes, and I'm unlikely to switch just for access to an Apple-specific proprietary key. So I'll have to stick with Command + Option + F5.
Just try it
It's just a matter of trying what I said earlier, either hold Command and triple-press that key for the Accessibility Shortcut or hold Control+Option and triple-press that key for Universal Access Control.. Locking the screen is the standard behavior for that key, but the accessibility combinations work under any conditions, even when the keyboard is otherwise being captured by a virtual machine. As a matter of fact I often do this to quickly escape input capture and enable VoiceOver in UTM, because it always works and doesn't affect the guest system, and back when Safari Not Responding was a problem it was also useful to escape VoiceOver's input tap that often locked me out of my own computers, as VoiceOver just kept intercepting input and repeating that sentence and preventing keyboard events from propagating to other system applications and services.
No fix for VO+F hang
I just reproduced the VO+F Zoom hang. Here's what I experience.
Join a Zoom meeting and use VO+F to try to find a Zoom control, such as chat, audio, whatever. After that, nearly anything you do, including Command+Option+F5 to open the accessibility menu, results in "Zoom US Not Responding". Command+Q produces the same response. Fortunately, you can Command+Tab to another app, which gives you back control of your computer. The fix is to then launch Force Quit, kill Zoom, and rejoin your meeting.
Picking your poisons
How are those Windows, Applications, and now even Copilot keys working out for you?
Honestly I have no idea why you thought it would go any differently after consciously choosing to not follow my suggestion. Deciding to buy a Mac and refusing to buy a Magic Keyboard because of a possibly non-standard button makes little sense to me, but each to their own I guess...
Back to the topic
Thanks, João Santos, for the helpful information.
Getting back to the topic, if anyone has a constructive comment on how best to report such issues to Zoom, I would appreciate it.
Response from Zoom...
Hi Everyone.
So after reading this thread I reached out to one of my contacts inside Zoom Support for some assistance. Here is the response I received after they reviewed our discussion here.
[EXTERNAL]
Hi Bo,
This is a good resource: https://www.zoom.com/en/accessibility/
From that page:
To provide accessibility feedback, report an issue, or request accessibility support, please email [email protected]
I chatted with this Team and they encouraged Zoom users to contact them at [email protected] with any issues or questions. I forwarded your link and they are investigating.
I also spoke to a Support Manager and he advised that free users should be able to submit Support tickets. Phone support would not be available.
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/requests/new to submit a ticket. Make sure you are logged in.
If these suggestions are a dead end please let me know.
Hope that helps and thanks for reaching out!
===========
With that said, if anyone has issues with the above, let me know, and I will relay it back through my contact.
Very cool
Thanks, Bo. I appreciate your help. Maybe I can get some of these issues resolved.
Hotspots?
Couldn't you use hotspots to jump to specific controls, or at least areas that get you closer to controls? I use VO's find a fair bit but I don't think I've ever tried it with controls. Oh also, the item chooser. If you're typing in VO-f, you can just as easily type in the item chooser.
Zoom support email sent
Hi Bo. I sent a rather lengthy email to that accessibility email you provided. If that goes nowhere, I'll try a support ticket. I appreciate your help with this.
Glad to be of help...
No problem. Glad to help. As with any other free service, be patient with their support team. I don't know what their turn around time is to reply. I'd give them a couple days for basic stuff, several for longer emails with multiple issues. They'll likely need to break those up into single issue threads internally. I know in my case, we only allow one issue per case. Multiple issues equals separate cases for each.
And I agree that the item chooser might be a viable option, if you know what you're looking for. I've not used hotspots enough to know how that would go.
Positive progress
I've been engaging with a Zoom accessibility support staffer and feel the conversation has been constructive.
The VO+F issue has been brought to the attention of the developers.
The issue with meeting recording almost certainly stemmed from me attempting to dismiss the notification popup, but it turns out that is an FYI-only dialog announced by VoiceOver and not a visible dialog that is obscuring my screen share. I did not need to dismiss it, and if I had done nothing, my guess is that my presentation would've gone off without a hitch. How a blind person would know that, is a good question, and they will consider ways to make that notification more clear.
Since I was on a roll, I mentioned that Zoom and VoiceOver speech overlap, as if Zoom is, for some unknown reason, making its own calls into the speech API. And there's no way to turn that off.
Bo, I appreciate you helping me find a way to bring these issues to Zoom's attention. Let's hope there is some progress, and the app becomes more accessible and usable for us.
Working with Zoom Support
Hi Paul,
I'm glad your correspondence with Zoom Accessibility Support has been productive. Someone needs to take initiative from time to time. I've worked with Zoom support on a rebranded version of their product for somewhere in the neighborhood of ten years now, and have found them generally responsive and helpful. I also know from experience that many of these telecom companies, though their intentions are good, implement solutions without necessarily having a good control group or input from our community. I've been working to change that in my own employment and our products, but it will be an ongoing thing...
And agreed. The Zoom text to speech, as useful as it's intended to be, is distracting, and at times totally ill timed in when it pipes up. It needs to be handled better. But I applaud the intent.