Apple Maps on iOS 15.2 does not provide audio turn-by-turn directions after the first turn

I finally fixed it! But, not really "fix" so much as "erase then restore"... which is never an optimal solution, since I don't know exactly what went wrong/what the root cause was, but it was fairly painless, aside from the annoyance of having to re-enter my password, re-setup FaceID, re-setup Siri, etc.

I had to:

1. Make a full backup to the Mac (local, not in iCloud).
2. Turn off Find My > iPhone.
3. Erase back to factory default with these instructions (I tried doing the instructions reset from the Finder through my computer, but it was just not doing anything).
4. Restore the most recent backup (not setting up as a new device first, just straight to restoring the backup).
5. Set up phone again, but everything's back the way it was.

Afterwards, I fired up Maps and told it to give me walking directions, then driving directions, and I was able to hear navigation again without tapping the mute icon then unmuting sound again.

Thanks for your response; I appreciate it!

As noted in post:

• Not paired to vehicle's Bluetooth; strictly trying to listen to voice directly through phone.
• No Bluetooth devices (such as Power Beats Pro) are paired to the phone while driving.

(In fact, it has never been paired with my car's Bluetooth.) The only thing connected to it while driving is my Apple Watch.

I have not noticed this problem occurring with other apps, but this is the only app I use for step-by-step navigation.

Your post did prompt me to do another test. As I said, I usually have Siri disabled, but I turned it on to test it. When I asked Siri a question, it gave me a voice response as expected. I then tried a Maps route again after enabling Siri, and it did not provide voice instruction until I muted/unmuted through the Maps UI (as my post described).

If there's another app you can suggest that I can test with, please do. Thanks in advance!

Hi there—sadly, I am still having the same problem. I think I may uninstall Maps, turn off the phone, leave it off for a few, then restart it and try to reinstall Maps. I'm not having any luck with finding steps for anything like a clean/full uninstall. I will report back if this works.

The other thing you describe sounds like it might be a setting in Google Maps (I remember seeing this while playing around with settings). Tap your user image in the top right corner, then tap Settings > Navigation. Might want to make sure that the toggle for Access your Assistant with "OK Google" is off... because as it says: "Hey Siri" won't work while navigating when this is on. Good luck :)

I appreciate the suggestions and your willingness to help, but it feels like you haven't really read what I've posted.

I did not say it's happening with other apps. I said I don't know what other apps would be affected (in order to be able to test it), which is why I did the test with enabling Siri. If you know of an Apple-native app I could test that does something similar to turn-by-turn directions and uses the Siri voice, let me know. I'm not aware of one.

I have already restarted the phone, as I said in the original post.

Directions Wake Device is already enabled.

Thanks.

Did this happen to you too?

If not, I will say that my spouse has the same phone, was not seeing this problem, did the same upgrade, and has had no similar issues after upgrading. If you're not currently experiencing this problem, it seems unlikely this will spontaneously occur to you.

If anyone is reading this for the continued saga, I also tried changing voices from British voice 2, restarted. Still no joy. :(

Another update: Still not working. I have had to switch to Google Maps for the time being because I really need voice directions when driving.

I strongly suspect there is the equivalent of a corrupted preferences file on the phone that did not get purged when I removed and reinstalled the app, since my wife's phone does not have the same problem and our configurations are virtually identical (same phone model, same version of iOS).

I'd really hate to factory default the phone, but I fear that might be my last alternative.

One final addendum—hope this can help someone else. (Sorry, I had typed a longer post up and accidentally wiped it out.)

I started experiencing the same issue again, which made me lose my mind. I decided to do one more search and found one reference somewhere (I can't find it again) to Sound Recognition causing this issue, and turn it off if it's on.

I checked Settings > Accessibility > Sound Recognition and sure enough, it was on. (Must have been on for some time, since I don't remember enabling it recently.) I turned it off and things are working perfectly with Maps now.