Voice Control turns off by itself in iOS 16.2

Possible fix!

I reset all my settings on April 12 and have not had any problems with Voice Control since.

This does ERASE All Settings! So you’ll have to set up everything again which is time consuming. 

Make sure to make a backup of your Voice Control Custom Commands and Vocabulary! So you can easily import them again afterwards. I just back them up into iCloud Drive.

As well as making a iPhone backup.

Steps to Erase All Settings = Open Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset All Settings

Hope this helps everyone with this problem.

OK so it seems to me that my iPhone is deleting the downloaded language for voice control. And it all happened within a 24 hour period unless I intervene and change the languages from English Canada to English US and back again before voice control deletes the language.

https://youtu.be/xdlUBJiNKAk

The video is recorded at a time when voice control is not working but hasn't quit by itself yet. I try using voice commands to tell it to ‘wake up’ but it will not. (The Voice control area is all Red and it does not change to Blue if it is awake and listening.)

So I turn off voice control then turn it back on. It doesn’t work.

Go into Language to download English United States. (it shows English Canada is ready to use with a checkmark)

When English United States start downloading so does English Canada.

Once English Canada is done downloading, then am I able to use voice control again.

…

OK so doing a encrypted back up on my iMac and then restoring the back up seems to have fixed the problem.

I had just re-downloaded the English Canada and English United States a few hours before doing the back up. It's been two days and it hasn't quit on me or anything.

And of course, the next update is available today 🙄 hopefully no problems with this update…

Anyways, hope this might help someone.

So after updating to iOS 16.3.1, Voice Control continues to have the same problems.

On February 22, I did a fresh install of iOS 16.3.1 and set up as new… but unfortunately on the 24th at 11 PM I noticed that it had stopped working and it had to re-download the Canadian English language package.

So still not fixed.

I have reported it to their feedback again.

Hey Ryan, my name is Cody. 

Yeah I’ve sent diagnostics to apple through their feedback about 10 times, after each updated and after wiping the phone and backing up, and starting fresh. My roommate also has the problem on his iPad and iPhone.

Sad that Apple has an accessibility feature that now just quits whenever it wants. And that 3 updates have passed and no fix or feedback about it. (that I know of)

Yeah I use a Tecla-e from my Permobile and a Tecla-Shield from my bed.

I also have a QuadStick FPS that I just have hooked up to my PlayStation. I use the Headmouse Extreme on my iMac since I find it way faster, for myself.

We’ll definitely keep you updated if I have any good news.

Hey brbo,

My apologies for the late reply.

Yeah ha ha, have spent a lot of time giving all the details I can about specific problems so that Apple can't say "they need more information", because you've already given them everything under the sun.

And sometimes it seems like you'll know more about their product then they do, in certain areas, so then they know to go directly to the developers about the problem. Yes I have contacted Apple through the accessibility support page as well as the Feedback Assistant multiple times.

So unfortunately I think I'll have to do another attempt through their support page.

Thanks for posting the link though so that others can hopefully inform them that they are having the same problems.

Well, turns out this didn't fully fix the problem. Last two nights voice control has turned off by itself. I am able to easily use Siri to turn it back on without having any problems with Voice control working right away or having to re-download the languages.

Still need Apple to do their part and fix the problem… So frustrating.

Unfortunately this did not fix the problem… Voice control turns itself off two days later and then the next day.

Asked my roommate how his iPad was doing and he said that voice control has been working good for about a week… he didn't reset his phone or anything.

So my current guest is it has to do with the Apple servers causing the problems.

Incredibly irritating that they have had this problem since December 13 2022.

Hey brbo,

Unfortunately I have plenty of space, so I doubt that this could be the cause for me, but I haven’t thought about storage being a problem so hopefully they can help somebody else.

As for memory, I barely use my phone at all and often close out applications and restart the phone every couple days.