How to fix Accessibility settings issue leading to Browser Crashes on Sonoma?

Please post an EtreCheck report of yiur system and we can look for issues that would cause his

Give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

If the above doesn't help follow rkaufmann87's recommendation of running Etrecheck and posting the full report via the "Additional Text" button:

Hi Tigerladybarb - I had exactly the same issue straight after a Somona upgrade ... browser apps crashing on certain sites (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) - their dumps showed the crashes were linked to speech. I had the same errors in System Preferences -> Accessibility-> Spoken Content and Live Speech. Also in terminal "say hello" threw an exception.

I created a separate admin account on the macbook and tested for the above - none of the symptoms were present so how I fixed it was to make a backup of ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.* from both my existing and my new user accounts, then when logged in as my existing account, copied in the files from my new admin account overwriting the old settings. Apologies if anyone is looking for precision but I didn't find the specific properties list file as this does reset most of your settings but I was able to quickly redo my changed settings.

Not suggesting this approach is for purists as it needs more precision but it worked for me no guarantee it will work for anyone else - I first backed up all files in my ~/Library/Preferences in case I needed them

Login as new user

mkdir /tmp/user1

chmod 777 /tmp/user1

cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.* /tmp/user1

Login as original user then

cp /tmp/user1/com.apple.* ~/Library/Preferences

Forgot that you have to run each of the above commands with sudo so:

Login as new user

sudo mkdir /tmp/user1

sudo chmod 777 /tmp/user1

sudo cp ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.* /tmp/user1

Login as original user then

sudo cp /tmp/user1/com.apple.* ~/Library/Preferences

Slightly easier fix:

I had essentially the same problem. Web pages making every browser crash.

System settings crashing on Accessibility-> Spoken Content and Live Speech

I went into preferences and found that the only recently changed pref was:

com.apple.SpeakSelection.plist

So I deleted that and System Settings Accessibility-> Spoken Content and Live Speech immediately began to work again and web pages began to display without crashing.

You would find in in the User's Home directory /Library/Preferences

Since the home folder's Library is usually hidden one way to get there is to use the Finder's Go menu and select "Go to Folder..." and type in: ~/Library/Preferences

Or you can hold down the Option key on your keyboard and select the Go menu in Finder - with the Option key held down the user's Library will appear in the list.

Even better solution - thank you

👍

To expand upon the solution, just go to a terminal and do "rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SpeakSelection.plist". Also for SEO here's the error from Chrome if someone searches for it.

Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException'

👍

Thank you, this worked great.

It works! Just delete com.apple.SpeakSelection.plist and reboot then all browsers are fixed. I give you a deep bow. Thanks a lot!

Thanks, carfax!!! This worked for me.

Take a look at both of carfax's posts to see how to find the file he says to delete.