I updated to iOS 13 and speak screen accessibility feature stopped working correctly

Try disabling Reachability (found under Settings/Accessibility/Touch/Reachability). That was interfering with my Speak Screen functionality, and when I disabled (turned off) Reachability, then Speak Screen worked. Does that fix work for you?

Last week (iOS 13.3.1) I phoned to Apple, and after a long time explaining and trying stuff they “upgraded” me to a higher level of support - it was the team leader I guess. He put me into hold and meanwhile spoke to the accessibility team. He than explained to me that although he had not known of any of those problems with speak screen, the accessibility team apparently was aware of them, and that a future iOS should resolve those problems. He said to me that if problems are not resolved with the next update, I should call again.

So let’s hope for the best - and call all together if it doesn’t work out!

I did everything up to this point. it did not work. What has worked for me was:

1. I turned-off speak screen
2. I turned on voice over
3. I used voice over on kindle for a while, 5 min.
4. I turned off voice over
5. I turned on speak screen again
6. I went back to the same kindle book and then it was working with speak screen option

I use IOS 13.3.1

I've now fixed this issue twice (after 2 different updates). Both times the solution was the same:

1) Disable Speak Screen (in Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content)

2) Shut down phone and restart

3) Turn on Speak Screen

If it happens after the next update, I'll try these same steps.

Upgrading to 13.4 has finally fixed it for me! So happy to have it back and reliable. 🎉🎉🎉

Last week (iOS 13.3.1) I phoned to Apple, and after a long time explaining and trying stuff they “upgraded” me to a higher level of support - it was the team leader I guess. He put me into hold and meanwhile spoke to the accessibility team. He than explained to me that although he had not known of any of those problems with speak screen, the accessibility team apparently was aware of them, and that a future iOS should resolve those problems. He said to me that if problems are not resolved with the next update, I should call again.

So let’s hope for the best - and call all together if it doesn’t work out!

I just upgraded to iOS 13.4 and it appears to have resolved the issue.

I’ve been using this feature for a long time too and this problem started to happen with me since iOS 13 update quite some times. After a hard reset it goes back working again. One thing I have noted is that, every time I use Apple Car Play, after I disconnect iPhone from the car and try to use speak screen it doesn’t work. Has someone noted the same problem? It seems to be a bug.

Wow. After almost a year the hole pile of problems with read screen seem resolved (at least for me): I recently installed public beta of iOS 14, and since none of the afire mentioned problems where resolved, I filed a report through the beta feedback app to Apple. After some days now suddenly everything is working fine as it should: screen read is fine, no more crashes, CarPlay works again, no need to cold restart iPhone anymore... I’m so happy. I hope this is not just for me - try it yourself (note: I also switched from the German voice I normally used to Siri male - don’t know if this had any impact on the hole situation) 👍👌

BTW iOS 14 beta works great!

As with most things, the only way I can get around this issue is to restart my iPad. The settings are fine, the OS is fine. Works sometimes, doesn't other times. I use it for listening to books on the Kindle app. But as others has said, the text-to-speech function with the OS is buggy. Text-to-speech will read one page, page to the next, and then small box on the left side with the arrow will go black and then vanish. If it stays gray with the arrow, then it will continue reading. I know the Apple team doesn't wish to hear that there is a problem with their code, but it's a bug, boys.

I can confirm that very same behavior! For me too only hard reset helps - sometimes have to do it 2-4 times a day (as I use speak screen very often)...

This fixed it for me:

Turn off Speak Screen, restart phone, turn on Speak Screen.

Finally Siri can read web pages again!

I observe the feature is still not working properly with iOS 13.4.1. Only (temporary) workaround is a reboot of the device.

The speak screen used to be integrated with the music app before iOS 13. It always had problem with randomly stopping, but at least it pauses when AirPod was removed or an incoming call appears. Now on iOS 13, the speak screen is an application of it own, with same issue unsolved plus new problems. I’ve reported the issue since the initial released of iOS 13 2 months ago. No improvements was made with the latest iOS update.

The only “cure”, which seems to be very temporary, is doing a “hardware reset”. The problem seems to exacerbate itself, while listening to something, and using another phone function, or different app. That’s really sets Speak Screen off.