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. This immediately renders VoiceOver inoperative. It's been a while since I've done this, but if I remember correctly, the only fix is to leave the meeting and re-enter.
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, Zoom 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 return to a working system.
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 lett me rant, and 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.