Siri suddenly stopped speaking on my iPhone XS 13.5.1. I tried restarting, hard-restarting, the volume buttons on the Siri response screen, and disabling/reenabling Siri. Nothing worked. Then tried changing voice to American Male. That worked. Switched back to American Female, and it stopped working again. Switched back to male, and it works.
Siri lost her American Female voice.
Only issue now is that Siri is randomly activating on its own.
iPhone XS
You click on Siri in settings, then click Siri Voice. Tap on another voice. You have to wait a minute because the new voice has to download. You must have an internet connection - WiFi or a Data time as part of your phone provider package. After you download a new voice from the list, for instance, British, or Australian it should work. Also I found that switching to the opposite Male/Female from what you have also works as you said. I switched from American/female to Australian/female and Siri’s voice is back. So if you lost Siri’s voice suddenly, and the settings were not changed, I found this is the only fix, and it is simple.
You click on Siri in settings, then click Siri Voice. Tap on another voice. You have to wait a minute because the new voice has to download. You must have an internet connection - WiFi or a Data time as part of your phone provider package. After you download a new voice from the list, for instance, British, or Australian it should work. Also I found that switching to the opposite Male/Female from what you have also works as you said. I switched from American/female to Australian/female and Siri’s voice is back. So if you lost Siri’s voice suddenly, and the settings were not changed, I found this is the only fix, and it is simple.
Wait to you here this one. I was in my car yesterday using Bluetooth to make calls and stream music. Afterward I didn’t use the phone for the rest of the day. Got up this morning picked up the phone to dictate a message and dictation didn’t work. The Australian voice was working on Siri before as a fix for the voice problem, but now Siri wasn’t working either. Same problem as before. I went to settings Bluetooth and turned it off. Tested Siri and it worked. Dictation worked. I don’t use dictation much so it is possible that when I encountered the first Siri problem dictation was not working then either. With Bluetooth off, just out of curiosity I switched back to American voice and it worked! Turned Bluetooth back on and it still works. The American voice is back! Seems that my phone did not/does not properly disconnect from Bluetooth when I left the car. This is something to check. I may have to manually turn off and reset the Bluetooth in settings sometimes when I leave the car if this problem continues. So this could be a try for people who lost Siri voice. Turn off Bluetooth in settings then test Siri. It worked for me, and when I turned Bluetooth back on Siri is still working fine on American.
Thank you. I spoke with Apple Support, and they were unable (so far) to restore Siri’s American female voice. Downloading alternate language voices, or switching to the American male voice worked as well.
I am assuming that this means the American female voice file somehow got deleted or corrupted. It seems odd that you cannot just download it again as you can for alternate languages. I did download several alternates (to see which I preferred) and noticed that after a while, the ones that I did set permanently were automatically deleted. I discovered this by changing the language again, and it prompted me to download again.
Apple later responded to an earlier Tweet advising that this is a known issue and that they do not have a fix yet. They advised to keep an eye open for new iOS updates:
“Thanks for reaching out. We’re happy to help. We’ve heard reports of the issue you’re describing, and it’s currently under review. We don’t have a solution at this time, but recommend that you keep your software up-to-date.
As a workaround, as you’ve noticed, change Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Voice to a different Siri voice to test. You can then use the alternate voice temporarily.”
Thanks again for your assistance!
Just called Support and got a quick fix by changing the Siri Voice to Australian Female - which will trigger the downloading both on Australian Female and American Female, and then change it back to American Female, then the voice is back. They told me for some reason American Female voice was corrupted and this is the only fix now.
It is a known problem but you should still contact AppleCare and tell them you are having it so they can record data points. Click on the Contact Support link at the top right of this page.
Thanks for getting back to me. I do have a Siri voice now by switching to Australian. I didn’t get any help from the tech I talked to that worked. So if you got the American female voice back if you can tell me the fix, maybe it will work for me. Thanks for getting back.
I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear - I did speak to an AppleCare representative who tried to trouble-shoot the problem, but we were unsuccessful. The workaround was setting an alternate language voice.
Prior to calling I had sent a Tweet, but didn’t hear back within an hour, so I called in. The Tweet reply came after I had completed my call with AppleCare.
I was NOT able to resolve the issue and restore the American female voice.
If you can download foreign accent voices, I don’t understand why you can’t download the American voices. Seems like an easy fix.
You were clear, check you my response was to.
Thanks. They did suggest I try that, but it didn’t work for me, unfortunately.
OMG! It worked. Wow, thank you so much!
Just out of curiosity, is your car a Honda? Mine is, and wondering if it’s a Honda / Apple issue with Bluetooth.
Siri lost her voice
