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Siri Stopped Talking on Speakers

Hi Everyone,


I posted this earlier as a discussion because I thought Apple had a fix. Basically, Siri does not speak out loud through iPhone speakers, only through ear buds or small ear speaker in the phone. No "Ding" sound to indicate Siri has started or finished recording. She will not speak out loud any of her feedback. We've tried the following:


Ensured Voice Feedback was set to "Always"


Turning off Siri followed by soft reset & restart, then turning Siri back on


Checking volume of speakerphone (obviously)


Reset all settings to factory default


Restoring iPhone from backup


Changing language from US English to Australia, restarting then, changing back again (doesn't work in Australian either)


Turning off Raise to Speak (and turning back on)


There may have been other things we've played with over the past few days, but I can't remember them all. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!


Thanks,


Lawrence

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 12-Core 2010, 24GB RAM, ATI R5870

Posted on Nov 4, 2011 10:56 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 4, 2011 1:21 PM

Ok!


Here's my final answer: Activate Siri, and turn the volume up!!! Apparently, I turned the volume down while it was shouting at me somewhere I wanted it to be quiet! Never connected the dots. So, for anyone having this issue, the fix is pretty simple. Now if I can figure out how to get Apple Care to add it to their trouble-shooting list! 😝


Lawrence

32 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 4, 2011 1:21 PM in response to Lawrence Ingram_Ii

Ok!


Here's my final answer: Activate Siri, and turn the volume up!!! Apparently, I turned the volume down while it was shouting at me somewhere I wanted it to be quiet! Never connected the dots. So, for anyone having this issue, the fix is pretty simple. Now if I can figure out how to get Apple Care to add it to their trouble-shooting list! 😝


Lawrence

Aug 4, 2017 10:19 AM in response to Lawrence Ingram_Ii

Lawrence,


I can't thank you enough for your "final answer." I had tried everything to make Siri speak. I spent TWO hours on the phone with Apple Support. We went thru a number of procedures which included soft reset, hard reset, checking the settings, restoring my iPhone to factory settings, and reinstalling my backup. Those didn't solve my problem and the end result was being told that I would have to do a "restore" and then install ALL my apps, photos, etc. from scratch. That was going to be a lot of work. So I was planning to wait for iOS 11 to see if that solved my problem.


In the meantime I (fortunately) ran across your suggestions...and your "final answer" post from Nov 4, 2011 1:21 PM caught my eye. I had NO IDEA there were TWO volume settings for the iPhone. One for Siri and one for everything else. Now that I have solved my "Siri not speaking" problem, I am shocked that Apple Support did not have me check that as the very first step. Even after I told Apple Support that I could "hear" Siri thru my wireless earbuds. That should have clued them that the Siri volume was turned off.


Thank you again for your "final answer" solution. Not having to go thru the process of reloading everything from scratch saved me a lot of time and frustration.


Bart Bartlett

Canton, GA

May 25, 2017 8:47 PM in response to Pat747

I have the same problem with the ding and prompt working only via headphones. Plugging in and unplugging just stops Siri from speaking entirely. It hasn't resolved the problem. Siri's volume is all the way up. Prompts enabled.


This is obviously a mixer/audio device selection bug Apple hasn't been bothered to fix for YEARS. There's a similar problem when unplugging headphones when my iPad Pro is asleep; if I unplug the audio cable, it never switches to speakers. I have to wake the iPad and then plug and unplug or I get no audio.

Nov 18, 2011 1:18 AM in response to Lawrence Ingram_Ii

Friends, I have just the solution for you! And it has worked on two iphones!


I had the same problem. Siri was audible only on the earbuds or bluetooth, but no longer audible on the speakers. Speaker worked for everything else, but not Siri.


I tried everything without success. Then I called Apple Care and they couldn't figure it out either. They gave up and sent me a replacement iPhone 4S which I received today.


I couldn't believe it -- the replacement phone had the same problem! Siri wasn't audible on the speakers. So I combed through the iPhone forums and found one that claimed the 100% solution to a similar problem where music would no longer play on the speakers but only on the earphones was to remove and reinsert the earphones for several seconds into the earphone jack while the music was playing. The guy on the forum claimed he has never heard of this solution not working.


So I wondered if that technique would work with Siri, and tried it. I inserted the earphones, pressed and held down the Home button to activate Siri, and while Siri was talking I removed and reinserted the earphones over and over again for several seconds. Bingo! It worked!


And get this -- I tried it on the replacement iPhone 4S Apple had just sent me and it fixed Siri on that phone too!!! It has now worked twice to repair a silent Siri!


I think there must be a hardware problem with regard to the earphone jack design. I hope Apple reads this and takes note of the solution -- they need to fix that part.


Pat pat747

Jan 14, 2012 9:37 AM in response to Pat747

Pat747 - THANKS! I was using Siri in the car with my bluetooth system. Came in the house and less than a minute later, Siri wouldn't work. I read your message here and put some earphones on and - what do you know - I could hear the ding and Siri talking. I only had to put the earphones in once, pull then out once and Siri was back working again! THANKS again.

Feb 27, 2012 10:47 PM in response to Pat747

I have this EXACT problem Pat, although your solution did not work. This is the second replacement iphone 4s I've gotten for failure of the external speaker/ issues with iPhone audio. And nonetheless, I was never able to restore the new phone and download my media from my old phone with iCloud due to "backup failure" which then went on to tell me I all of a sudden needed to buy more storage on iCloud. When will the issues end?... Anyways, I really do not want to have to go through the trouble again of getting a new phone while having to figure out how to transfer info from my current replacement phone plus the LAST phone to yet ANOTHER replacement phone... I've called apple support multiple times, and each time they were not able to resolve the issues.... HELP PLEASE??!!


Sincerely,

Frustrated apple customer

Dec 26, 2013 5:39 PM in response to Lawrence Ingram_Ii

I am having this same problem! However, for me, Siri is not speaking even after I turn Siri's volume up. I also tried inserting and removing my earpieces while Siri was speaking, unsuccessfully. Siri will speak through my earbuds, though. I know the speaker is not broken, I checked, and I hear a ding when activating Siri. I have an iPod Touch 5, running iOS 6.1.3.

Oct 9, 2016 5:59 PM in response to Lawrence Ingram_Ii

My problem is a bit weirder than that. Siri answers everything out loud through the iPhone speaker -- except when I ask "what song is playing". Then she prints the name of the song on the screen and nothing I have tried will make her speak it out loud. ***?!?!? This is really bizarre. I've tried restarting, I've checked settings, I've inserted ear buds and removed them. She talks to me if I ask "Siri what's my name" or "Siri talk to me" or "Siri read my last message", but if I ask "What is this song" she just writes it to the screen. This only started happening with the latest iOS update (10.0.2). Very annoying. (Just like lots of the other changed-just-to-change things about 10.0.2, like how you no longer swipe on the home screen to get to the pin entry, or where the camera icon is on the home screen... why these silly changes? But I digress...)


-- lauri

Siri Stopped Talking on Speakers

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