Dictation goes to sleep and never wakes

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Dictation goes to sleep and never wakes

I love the macOS built in dictation which always works after I start my Mac but if the computer goes to sleep dictation never works after the computer wakes. I can fiddle with the dictation settings, but the only thing that restores dictation is restarting the computer. One curious thing, even after Dictation has stopped working and I go into settings for Sound the graphic level meter shows the computer is getting a normal signal from the mic. I've searched Reddit and Googled but had no luck coming up with a fix. ChatGPT was also stumped. Any suggestions for a fix?

[MacStudio M1 Max, Sequoia 15.7.2]

Mac Studio, macOS 15.7

Posted on Nov 9, 2025 11:37 AM

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Answer 1

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Zaptrax Author

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Nov 10, 2025 8:49 AM in response to den.thed

Thanks. So, I tried your suggested test and it did not fix the problem. But that got me thinking about the problem differently. The microphone had been plugged into the dock on my monitor and even though it was still outputting a signal to the Mac and the mics power light remained on even when the Mac was in sleep mode, I thought maybe I'll connect it directly to the USB port on the back of the Mac and see what happens. It worked! It worked even though when the Mac goes to sleep the mic's power light goes off. I have no idea why this works. Thanks for helping me to look at the problem a little differently.

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