spinning wheel icon next to wi-fi indicating network activity

rswc90 wrote:

I cannot answer that because I immediately downloaded the main apps I used and connected mail accounts etc. So there was no mention of trying a "virgin" slate, so to speak! …

I’m not surprised. It’s an extra step (or more), and one always hopes that restoring everything will simply “work”.

(Even the techs hope so.)

…

I suppose I could try that now by backing everything up and then factory restoring with no apps for a day... to see if voice to text still triggers it. The problem is that the trigger is not consistent - it's random.

Intermittent (“random”) issues are always the worst! They are the “bane” of troubleshooting!

If you are willing, and your are able to get it to “trigger”, this will be helpful.

Unfortunately, with the “trigger” being “random”, you could see nothing, but we would not be able to conclude that running under Factory Conditions has no issue.

The longer one can run under Factory Conditions, without an issue, the greater the confidence that there is no issue under that condition, but the confidence will never quite reach 100%.

Perhaps Machine_Ruse can give you pointers on “triggering” the issue more reliably.

I do not tap Siri or say anything to Siri.

As described before, I simply activate Siri by holding the home button. The Siri “oracle” pops up, and then after a few seconds it shrinks down slightly, and after a few seconds longer, the oracle completely disappears. That is when the spinning indicator also disappears.

I only briefly tried the continuous tapping method, because my experience was that it took longer to resolve.

Over the past week or two, I’ve been trying the method of activating Siri and then immediately deactivating. It’s been inconsistent for me. Sometimes it works on first try, but usually requires multiple attempts.

The most consistent method for me remains the method where I activate Siri and then don’t do or say anything, I just stay quiet until the Siri oracle shrinks and then closes. That method works on first try about 80% of the time.

I had posted on here about two months ago with same issue on iPad, which have continued to persist. I was about at the point of approaching apple for a final solution, but this morning after updating to iOS 14.4.1, I cannot get the icon to spin! Anybody else?

This is so frustrating. This never happened on my iPhone 8 Plus but it’s constant on my shiny new SE. Sometimes using SIRI stops the data wheel spinning but usually not, so I have to restart. I’ve now resorted to turning off keyboard dictation to prevent me from accidentally starting the wheel spinning. I normally use dictation all the time. I’ve also called Apple and submitted feedback. They need to come up with a fix!! 😡

There are different layers of software on any device. The idea of the operation system (iOS in this case) is to normalize the difference devices so people can write apps once and have them work on all devices. Below the app<>OS layer is the OS<>driver layer. Where device-specific drivers fulfill a contract to the OS. It is this layer that is dependent on the hardware of the phone. A network driver for the SE for example might be different than the one for the iPhone 10 or 12. I have written many iOS and other types applications but not worked on iOS directly, so just as an educated guess if this is only happening on the SE, then somewhere in the driver layer an incorrect network signal is getting to the network activity indicator in iOS causing it to stay spinning. I only replied to clarify that even if this is happening just on the SE, this can be fixed by a software patch (operating system or SE driver) and wouldn't require you to change out your hardware/phone. Hope that helps clarify my earlier statement.

I upgraded to iOS 14.5 over the weekend, but didn’t try voice to text until this morning. I’ve used it about five or six times so far, and have not had the persistent spinning icon. Can anyone else advise if they are still experiencing this problem after upgrading to 14.5?

I have had the same positive outcome of NO SPINNING WHEEL after the latest 14.5 iOS update for my SE. I hate to suggest that they have fixed it because I don't want to jinx it! But it looks like they have (at least for now).

This community is great! Just sayin'

That does not match with my understanding. I believe voice to text does utilize network activity, because it sends your speech to Apple's servers, which in turn translates the speech to text and sends the text back to your phone. That behavior is supposed to change in iOS 15, because Apple stated they plan on having the speech to text done "on the device". Right now it's not done on the device, it's done on their servers.

Using speech to text for a very long message, like I commonly do, would certainly use enough data to activate the network activity indicator.

I'm not trying to argue here, but I want to make sure all of us (myself especially) understand how this all works.

Go to Settings/[your name]/iCloud. What switches do you have on to enable iCloud sync? If even one of them is on the phone will sync to iCloud using data.

I have same issue on same iPhone, this only started after The ISO 14 update for me . If I open and close Siri it temporarily stops the wheel

OK I just got off the phone with apple support. They are finally admitting there is an issue with the software. Their techs are working on it and will come out with a fix ASAP

Settings > Cellular > WiFi Assist > Off?

I just recently updated to 14.3. So far so good. Fingers crossed. Spinny wheel gone for two days

The reason I think a return or exchange could help, is because there are two other iPhone SE 2020 phones in my household, and neither of them exhibit the problem.