I've had my Mac mini since January and have never experienced this behavior. There are times II lose speech but can simply use command F5 to turn it off then back on again without rebooting.

From E.T.'s Keyboard...
Reality.sys corrupted. Universe halted.  Reboot(Y/N) ?

My e-Mail:
[email protected]

On 9/16/2025 7:10 AM, Steve Matzura wrote:
Wow. Glad to know I'm not crazy!


You can also adjust system audio volume with VO+Plus/Minus on the numbers row. I got into the problem scenario just because I wanted to know what came next on that menu.


On 9/15/2025 8:17 PM, Rollin Hippler wrote:
I've encountered this situation a number of times.  With sighted assistance I learned that the problem is when you use VO+SHIFT+COMMAND and then left-arrow, the VoiceOver options menu is overlaid with another window, thus causing VO to loose focus. Once this happens, it seems there is no way to get VO to speak again.  I don't remember what is in the new window, but my solution to get around this was to press and hold the power button on the Mac Mini M1 until it shuts off, wait a few seconds then power it back on.


I encountered this situation because the VO volume at start up on my system is too low and I tried to increase it using the VO+SHIFT +COMMAND keys, which brings up the VO options menu focused on rate.  Holding that combination then pressing the left-arrow key causes this mess.


Once my frustration level with this situation got to me, I contacted Apple Accessibility.  They were able to observe this behavior, but were unable to provide a solution.  However, they did suggest a work-around, which was to connect an external speaker to the head phone jack and use the volume control on that to get around this problem.  So I did, and no more worries!



On 9/15/2025 2:56 PM, Steve Matzura wrote:
Don't try this at home unless you're very brave!


I got my machine to go into Recovery Mode with VoiceOver. I went through the whole re-installation dialog, and decided I wanted to speed things up a little in the VoiceOver department. To do this, I held down Shift+VO+Command and use the Right Arrow key to navigate the VoiceOver adjustment menu to the Rate portion. I then used the VO+Up Arrow to adjust it a couple clicks faster. Then I decided I wanted to find out what was next on that menu, so I pressed Shift+VO+Command+Right Arrow again, and everything came to a grinding halt. No Voiceover, no nothing. Of course, I don't have the TV hooked up yet, and there's no one here to help me with it, so I just started over and decided I wouldn't press that key combination again! LOL.


But my curiosity got the better of me, and yes, I did try it again, and yes, it did fail again in exactly the same way.


I don't know that this is a problem when MacOS is actually up and running, but in the Recovery Mode screen, it definitely is.




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