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Siri dictation throws in extra words that I am not saying

When I dictate a text or other things, catcher Siri randomly throws in some form of the word catch whenever she wants to. It just happened above after the words other things achieve. I never said the word catcher. Catch the same thing is true of the word achieve a Chuchu in a sentence before last catchy. Catching. There it goes again so I will type the rest of this. You have to ignore “a Chuchu” to make sense of what Siri is typing in place of what I am dictating. Ever see anything like this before?

iPhone 6s

Posted on Oct 25, 2019 7:15 PM

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Posted on Oct 30, 2019 4:08 PM

YES, it's happening to nearly EVERY voice dictation I do on text, email, imessage. If I don't proofread before sending, I can bet there will be a few "catch" phrases in the mix. I'm using the iPhone 11pro max with the latest iOS 13 updates if that makes a difference.

195 replies

Oct 30, 2019 4:10 PM in response to les240

les240, Thanks for your reply. I was starting to get paranoid thinking I'm the only person whose iPhone is being so rude to them. I have an idea about trying to diagnose this problem on our own. It is a grievously annoying BUG somewhere in Apple's dictation implementation. Someone who, unlike us, knows anything meaningful about the guts of voice typing (e.g. somebody employed by Apple) should be able to do a little problem solving and fix this on their own. We know, of course that this never happens with Apple products. Anyway, here's my idea.

Look for those times when dictation is working correctly (it usually does for me). Then look for times when the word-inserts are happening. Make notes of anything you can think of that might help narrow down the possible reason this happens to us.

What I have so far is that it hasn't ever happened when I am connected through wi-fi. Using cellular, it is only happening when I am at home (no wi-fi there). Has not happened when using cellular connection on the road while shopping etc.

Got to think about what this might point to as a cause for the problem.

Got any ideas of your own?


Looking forward to hearing from you or anyone else about this.


Dec 8, 2019 10:00 AM in response to francesca108

I thought the whole point of posting on an Apple forum was to get the assistance of Apple technicians, apparently I am mistaken. My problem disappeared for a brief time when I updated my iOS, but it is back with a vengeance with all of us having the same problem you think that apple Would respond to us in someway. Pretty frustrating. Katje ( this is one of the new versions of catch that’s being inserted into my dictation catch ).

Oct 26, 2019 7:52 PM in response to BadBernie

This is a follow up on my post about Siri throwing in some form of the word catch whenever she feels like it. I can’t make any sense out of why this is happening. It’s been driving me crazy. I’ve never heard of this happening to anyone else have you? Wouldn’t you know it, I’ve dictated this post without anything of the sort happening.

However, the word “catch” has been inserted into everything else I have dictated today. Go figure.

Oct 30, 2019 4:19 PM in response to HorsePal

Judging from your unusual user name, you could be one of my grandchildren who loves horses, because I always call them "pal".

Back on subject, come join les240 and me in this new "Catchers Club" looking for some way to pin Apple down to the bug they have to fix for us.

You say it happens every time for you.

In my case, wi-fi connections haven't failed me yet. Are you connected by wi-fi when it is happening?

Oct 30, 2019 4:27 PM in response to BadBernie

Yes, I am connected by Wi-Fi and I have had it happen when I’m away from home also. It might be an exaggeration to say it happens every single time but it is so frequent that I come to expect it each time. That’s how I found this group… I googled something like “iPhone texting catch catchy.”


Catcher I have seven grandkids of my own LOL.… Oh look it just appeared. And I am on Wi-Fi. Catchy



Oct 30, 2019 4:31 PM in response to HorsePal

Horse Pal,

The way I've been told, your voice gets sent to a server somewhere and it responds with the text it generates from the voice stream that was sent. Cell phones often insert noise into what they send. The person on the other end says, "you are breaking up. repeat that."

Maybe the breaking-up noise sounds like "catch" or "scratch" or something when it gets to the voice-to-text conversion process.

If we can get some evidence that the problem cause is this or some other noise factor, Apple has some work to do to discriminate real speech from noise that does not sound like a human voice. Until this problem gets fixed, Apple's voice-to-text apps will become the laughingstock of the industry.

As of now, I have to type all my thoughts by hand on my IBM PC (Certainly not on a Mac)

Nov 3, 2019 6:17 PM in response to BadBernie

I've had this problem on my desktop since 10-24. I can literally put the dictation on and just let it run until it shuts itself off, and it will create a string of these words. Words and phrases that I've gotten so far include:

 

“catch,” "catchup," "catchy," "catcher," "A Chachi," "Chatchai," “are chips,” “or Chata,” “or chat,” "achieve, Kate, " “are Chuchu,” "Katje," “are Chachi,” “are Chachi a Chachi,” “Are Chatchai,” “are Chachi catch,” “Catch up catch,” “Are catching,” “catch up,” “Catcher catch,” “Catching,” “capitol catch," “a Chuchu,” “a Chachi,” “are Chutcha,” “Achoo,” “catchup,” “Can,” “Catch that,” “a Chachi catch,” “A chachos,” “a Chachi, catch up,” “Catch up catcher catch up,” “Catchy catcher,” “are Chachu," "are cheap," "or check"... the stranger ones once or twice, the simpler ones multiple times, the simplest ones many times.


There's no confusion whatsoever about this being an Apple issue; there's nothing else it can be, with multiple people getting it repeatedly on different devices and operating systems. I get it with every browser, every application, EVERYWHERE. Even dictating a search term in the Finder! This could also be the result of a hacker, I guess, although you'd think that Apple would catch onto that pretty quickly... No pun intended!

Nov 16, 2019 10:16 PM in response to Jak48ghwi

After weeks of "catchy" "catchup" etc, a new one showed up tonight: Cacciatore lol. I've gotten to where I close the mic immediately after making a voice dictation or else these words start appearing when nothing is being spoken. Sometimes they still sneak by. I won't see them when I push send but then they appear in the sent message.

Nov 19, 2019 2:19 PM in response to BadBernie

This has been happening to me as well after dictating to Siri. I started taking screenshots of them last night because it is so frequent. I was considering returning my new Iphone 11 Pro Max anyway because I've also had the camera freeze up on me. I love the phone but considering the cost and these glitches, it is a bit frustrating.

Nov 22, 2019 2:39 AM in response to ChrissyBarr

I called Apple tech support , described the problem, and ask them to assign a case number. Apple tried to contact me when I was gone. I returned their call and found out they had assigned a number for our case. Our case file, I’m happy to report,, was accurate up to that point. I spoke with a senior advisor. She had handled other calls reporting this kind of problem, but her understanding was that it was basically a microphone error. I was able to explain and convince her that this problem was quite different. She was very patient over the whole 45 minute call. She read through our discussions on the forum. Then she took a few minutes to look things up. Now that she understood what we have been discussing here, she found that the problem had been reported several times since sometime around mid October. She agreed to take ownership of this case and follow up reporting back to me as appropriate. We now have a case number with a person assigned to it who is reporting back to me by phone. Wish me luck

Siri dictation throws in extra words that I am not saying

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