Siri Stopped Working On MacBook Air

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Ontario1 Author

Level 1

58 points

Siri Stopped Working On MacBook Air

Siri had been working fine, but today I tried and cannot invoke Siri on my MacBook Air.

Not by voice and not by selecting the app and not by invoking the associated keyboard shortcut.

I recently had an update to macOS Sonoma 14.7. Not sure if that caused the issue or not.

Everything else seems to be working just fine on the computer. Siri is working just fine on my iPhone.

Some things I tried - to no avail:

Rebooted the Macbook.
Turned off/on Siri in System Settings
Turned off/on Listen For Hey Siri in System Settings.
Turned off/on Siri in iCloud
Deleted Siri history in iCloud
Confirmed no time of day restrictions in place.
Turned wifi off/on.
Checked sounds are adjusted properly input/output.
Rebooted again, just to be sure.

None of these were successful.

When I say "Hey Siri", I get no response from the Mac. When I try just invoking Siri by the icon on the top of the screen or by clicking on the App icon, or invoking the keyboard shortcut, it just makes a downward bloopinng sound that corresponds to something not working, and nothing more.

When I turn off/on Siri and Listen for Hey Siri in settings, it asks if I want to set up Hey Siri. I select continue and asks me say "Hey Siri, How's the Weather". It then indicates that Siri did not quite get that and asks me repeatedly to try again, until I eventually hit the cancel button.

I am at a loss as to what to do further. Not sure if others have this issue too. Any OPEX / resolutions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your support.

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.7

Posted on Oct 3, 2024 8:30 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

chumradio

Level 1

28 points

Nov 3, 2024 8:08 PM in response to Ontario1

I had additional apple tech support. which created far more significant problems than I care to mention here. So I gave up on their "senior advisors."

Decided to uninstall several 3rd party software, one by one. Lucky me that the first software to be uninstalled was Little Snitch, and Siri started working again (in all manners it can be invoked)!

I re-installed Little Snitch afterwards and so far, Siri continues to work. Hope this helps you if you've experienced the same problem.

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Answer 2

Ontario1 Author

Level 1

58 points

Dec 27, 2024 4:38 PM in response to Ontario1

A new macOS update came through yesterday - Sonoma 14.7.2, and lo and behold, Siri now works again. After the new software was installed on my MacBook Air, I went to Settings --> Siri and Spotlight --> enabled the option for Listen for "Hey Siri", and went through the set up process of saying "Hey Siri, What's the Weather", etc. This time Siri heard my responses and after I completed speaking back a few more items, it was all set up. I closed Settings and tried "Hey Siri", and all is back working fine again. Thanks to the Apple Engineering team for making this feature work again with the new macOS 14.7.2. Let's hope it continues to work going forward, and that whatever "bug" was introduced that stopped it from working is now included in the "lessons learned" database for future updates.

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Answer 3

Oct 5, 2024 8:10 PM in response to Ontario1

I've had the identical issue, and did the same trouble-shooting as you did (on my Mac mini). To no avail. I even re-installed Sequoia.

I did noticed something interesting, though. When I connected my bluetooth headphones, Siri started responding to all the different ways it can be invoked.

Four different advisors (including a senior advisor)had no solutions. I provided a diagnostic report and was promised a callback when the senior advisor had heard back from Engineers about the report.

Never happened.

Just received an email with boiler-plate text and a link to trouble-shooting steps that had already been taken.

If Siri on Mac doesn’t work as expected - Apple Support

Hard fail tech support.

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Answer 4

Nov 5, 2024 2:14 PM in response to Ontario1

Have you checked your sound settings, specifically, the microphone.? You can open QuickTime to make a quick audio recording to confirm the microphone is working. Otherwise, read my post below which mentions uninstalling Little Snitch software.

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Answer 5

Ontario1 Author

Level 1

58 points

Dec 6, 2024 1:42 PM in response to help5675

While the issue is still continuing, I have tried a couple of things.

In Settings, Accessibility, Siri, I enabled type to Siri. Now if I select the Siri icon at the top of my screen or along the bottom, the little Type to Siri interface comes up. I can type a question and Siri will write and say the response.

I saw some advice to use the Activity Monitor via Spotlight Search, and search for Siri. Click on it and select Refresh and then reboot. Unfortunately that did not help me.

In Settings, Siri and Spotlight, when I select to Listen for Hey Siri, the screen comes up for me to say "Hey Siri, What's the Weather", but Siri does not seem to hear that.

Under Settings, Privacy and Security, Microphone, there is a list of Apps with access to my microphone. It does not list Siri there. Maybe it's because I cannot keep the List for Hey Siri toggle button selected, since it cannot hear me when I try to repeat back the various sentences for setting up Hey Siri. Or maybe there is another reason it is not listed there. Its not like its just not toggled on, it is not even listed as an App that could use the microphone at this time.

My MacBook Air looks like it will have to stay with macOS Sonoma 14.7.1 (given its age/processor), so it's not like I can just wait until the next OS comes out. Any thoughts or fixes you may have had would be appreciated.

Thanks,

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Answer 6

Dec 29, 2024 6:25 PM in response to Ontario1

I have this problem, too, and while I don't have a solution yet, I did find a workaround. My MacBook Pro is connected to an Apple Studio Display. If I invoke Siri while using the studio display, I get the sad boop every time. If I use my AirPods or the MacBook's mic, it works every time.

The mic in the studio display works for every other application I tried (I use it all day for conference calls for my work).

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Answer 7

Nov 5, 2024 8:36 PM in response to Ontario1

I should have mentioned, senior advisors wanted me to create a guest account, and then try invoking Siri. That worked for all of five minutes, and then stopped working.

The other step that you might try is uninstalling (third party software) one at a time and re-starting each time.

The clue that I thought would help the engineers solve this problem was that whenever I turned on my bluetooth headphones, Siri started working again.

Good luck!

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Answer 8

Joapez

Level 1

14 points

Oct 8, 2024 3:31 PM in response to chumradio

I am also having the exact same issue, have not found a solution ANYWHERE. Have tried everything including a reinstall as mentioned above. It's almost as if Siri isn't really "there" or something. Completely at a loss on how to fix. Any updates or solutions?

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Answer 9

Ontario1 Author

Level 1

58 points

Oct 31, 2024 8:15 PM in response to Ontario1

An automatic update of the MacOS to Sonoma 14.7.1 was installed last evening.

I am sorry to say that Siri remains non-functional after the update.

I hope that Apple's engineers can look into this and include some kind of Siri refresh for those of us suffering from this issue on an upcoming MacOS update. It used to work just fine, and we want it to work like that again.

Thanks,

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Answer 10

Ontario1 Author

Level 1

58 points

Nov 5, 2024 6:43 PM in response to chumradio

Hello @chumradio. Thanks for the input and suggestions. I don't have Little Snitch loaded or too many other 3rd party apps. Certainly none installed recently. I also wondered about the microphone set up, but it is all functioning fine -- as checked with Settings and also functionality confirmed in all other applications that use these. And Siri is not able to be invoked by voice or even by tapping on the Siri App icon. So something more is going on. We hope that Apple engineering is looking into what may be going wrong. It is not happening this way for everyone, but, it looks like a number of us all have run into this recently. It is now a matter of figuring out what needs to be done to fix it. Regards,

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Answer 11

hydro187

Level 1

20 points

Nov 28, 2024 9:04 PM in response to Ontario1

I have this exact same issue as well - 2019 Macbook Air. Try to invoke Siri, and get the downward blooping sound that something didn't work. Mac OS 14.7.1. When I pull up the voice recorder app, the built-in laptop microphone works perfectly.

This is what I think is happening, as this happens to any Apple product I've owned once it hits the 4 to 6 year mark... Apple turns things off to entice me to upgrade. Apple probably 'broke' Siri on purpose for us with older machines.

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Answer 12

Dec 28, 2024 11:52 AM in response to hydro187

Same for me ...... exactly the same Mac & have done everything possible...... I believe this happened on the last update. Apple knows there is an issue .... why don't they correct it . The techs I talk to have no solution.

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