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after macos 10.15.4 update, voice control extremely slow

After updating to Mac OS X 10.15.4, voice control has gotten extremely slow. Commands and text take anywhere from five seconds up to a minute. At first I thought it wasn't working at all because it was taking so long to react. It effectively makes voice control unusable. Both Siri and dictation are responding much quicker and how you would expect them to.


I am running on a MacBook Air 2019 13 inch.


Is there anyway to fix this or at least roll back to 10.15.3 until it does get fixed? (I do not have a time machine back up that I can reinstate.)

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 26, 2020 12:13 PM

Reply
15 replies

Mar 26, 2020 12:30 PM in response to newleaf11

It is not possible to roll back to 10.15.3 now that 10.15.4 is out. You can file your comments at Feedback - Apple Support. There is little you can do. Part of the problem is that VC dictation and commands require data movement between your computer and Apple servers. Part of the problem is the changes made with VC and Dictation after Mojave. If these services are critical for you, then consider downgrading to Mojave, if your computer model is supported. How to Downgrade from macOS Catalina to Mojave. I don't know if the 2019 MBA can run Mojave.

Mar 28, 2020 4:02 PM in response to newleaf11

As an update, I was able to get Apple support on the phone and we tried several things that ended up not helping me. I will list them here in case they happen to work for anyone else. Also, if you try to contact Apple support they will probably ask you to do them anyways.


  • Turn vc off and on
  • Boot in safe mode (unfortunately that didn't help because it disabled my microphone)
  • Create a new user account (w/ admin privileges) and try voice control under that account.
  • Reinstall 10.15.4.
  • They also had me do something during the boot up but they didn't explain it. Perhaps flash the pram?
  • If you have a time machine back up, you should be able to use it to roll back to 10.15.3.


Then they transferred me to the people in the accessibility office. They had me run some diagnostics on my computer and send it to them so they can forward it to their engineers. They plan on following up with me next week. For now, that's the best they can do. Hopefully a fix will be coming sooner rather than later.

Mar 26, 2020 3:26 PM in response to Kappy

no offense but that is not an acceptable answer.


1) yesterday in 10.15.3 VC commands and speech to text were both very quick and responsive. today in 10.15.4 the same commands and speech to text that took less than a second now takes 15-45 seconds. and no, i am not exaggerating. i timed a "hide numbers" command and it took 52 s. you cannot blame that on client-server latency unless you are saying the apple servers or my internet connection are not working properly today. i can't attest to the former (except that i find it extremely unlikely) but all tests show my internet is working normally. furthermore, siri (which also sends data to apple servers) and dictation (not sure about that but i suspect so) work just fine. the most logical conclusion is that something in 10.15.4 or the installation process had the unintended consequence of kneecapping my vc.


2) rolling back to mojave is not an option for fixing voice control because voice control was introduced in catalina. mojave has dictation, which works just fine for me. so there is no point in going back to mojave, unless i want the features of enhanced dictation which is something but a poor substitute for vc.

Mar 26, 2020 5:38 PM in response to newleaf11

Having the exact same problem, I thought it was me. And yes internet connection is normally working. Yes 100% the new update did something to VC which is terrible since I use it on a daily basis for work. My only saving grace is that the VC on my iPad is functional and although a little bit of a pain its still easier than tying everything out until apple can fix it.


Sorry this isn't a helpful fix but I'm glad I'm not alone in having this issue

Mar 26, 2020 7:46 PM in response to newleaf11

Voice control was introduced before Catalina but not as a standalone element. It was part of the Extended Dictation Support in Dictation.


Since you are so well-versed as to know my answer was unacceptable, then perhaps you can answer your question yourself. Of course, if you could, then you wouldn't be here.

Mar 27, 2020 7:31 AM in response to Kappy

I came here for help. your answer was not helpful. if you think vc response times jumping from less than a second to almost a minute are because "VC dictation and commands require data movement between your computer and Apple servers" even though that is true in both 10.15.3 and 10.15.4, then perhaps you should restrict your comments to when you have something helpful to say.

Mar 28, 2020 3:20 PM in response to newleaf11

I am also having this problem. Voice Control is completely unusable for me after updating to MacOS 10.15.4 yesterday. Some commands work after a minute or two, but it is pointless to use, especially for dictation. I also noticed that it is using a much higher percentage of the CPU than normal. Something definitely got messed up in the latest update. And no, my Internet is not the issue unless a 1Gb down/45Mb up connection, which I just did a speed test to verify, is insufficient.


Downgrading is not a solution as even Advanced Dictation was very limited in Mojave. As someone with a disability that affects muscle strength, I have come to heavily rely on the extended VC capabilities in Catalina.

Mar 28, 2020 5:37 PM in response to newleaf11

I have this problem as well. I have not used my laptop since I was on Spring Break, and then I updated it and classes resumed, and I tried to use Voice Control to type my notes which I read from textbook into Microsoft Word and my Voice Control is delayed by 30 seconds for 6 words. For example, it takes 30 seconds for Voice Control to type into Word, "the dog ran across the street." Which is pointless use and I don't read like this. I usually read 100pgs aloud and I Voice Control (compact it) it into 17 pages. Although, I figured out Word has it's own dictation I hope it proves to be better than Apples Voice Control. I tried uninstalling Catalina but that took forever, and it didn't show that I had a backup. Wow, I see why Apple is loosing their customers. So annoyed. I also spoke to customer service for a whole 1 hour and all she did was tell me to reset PRAM and to boot in Safe Mode, and to reinstall Catalina again. To no avail my Voice Control is dead. Such a shame, the IT must have quit and created this issue. Get it together Apple.

Apr 22, 2020 8:48 AM in response to newleaf11

I have the same problem. Since Nuance discontinued it's support for Dragon for the Mac, I upgraded from macOS HIGH Sierra macos Catalina on my mid 2015 MacBook Pro excitedly anticipating the superiority of an Apple product. What a disappointment. With Catalina 15.3 it was sluggish and barely usable. But after mistakenly upgrading to Catalina 15.4 it was so slow that it became totally unusable. I thought the problem may have been the age of my computer. So I bought the new 16 inch MacBook Pro with 32 gigabytes of RAM. There was some improvement but only as good as my old MacBook Pro running Catalina 15.3. I think an important feature of the problem that may be helpful to Apple in creating a solution is that Voice Control slows progressively with use. A computer restart increases the Voice Control responsiveness which then again progressively slows overtime. Additionally, use of the Number overlay and grid overlay seem to be the features most responsible for the slowdown. I hope Apple recognizes this problem and that more members of the disabled community, like myself, Will speak up to push Apple to fix this and other idiosyncrasies that exist in Voice Control which will allow us lead more productive lives like Dragon once did.

Apr 22, 2020 9:25 AM in response to halpy

A week or two ago, a minor OS update was released with bug fixes. After that, voice control is back to working properly for me. So I would recommend installing the latest update for 15.4. If that does not fix it, then I would contact Apple support. And it's probably a good idea to talk to the people in the accessibility department. I found them to be much more helpful.

May 21, 2020 7:49 AM in response to newleaf11

OK, just going to say up front, sorry, I don’t have any helpful responses to solve this. But I’m so glad I found other people with this problem! For months I thought I was the only one.


I was fortunate enough to have an old 10.15 back up in my Time Machine that I reverted to, which wasn’t a perfect solution since it was outdated, but at least it taught me to always take a back up before updating.


Again, no solution to offer here, but in the interest of finding others who use voice control, I created a sub Reddit for people to share tips and tricks on. Hopefully we can get a more thriving community for VC related stuff!


https://www.reddit.com/r/VoiceControl/

after macos 10.15.4 update, voice control extremely slow

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