Dictation not working after installing Sonoma 14.7

I have just tried emailing accessibility@apple.com to report the apparent problem with Sonoma 14.7.

So, now it's been about three weeks since I've heard from anyone at Apple. The last correspondence was just to tell me that "engineering has all the necessary information and we will get back to you". Right.

I'm getting the feeling that Apple intends to ignore this problem. I hope I am wrong. I still want to like this company since Steve Jobs passed away, but Apple is making this difficult.

Out of curiosity, I decided to stop by an Apple retail store and an apparently competent young man suggested I upgrade to Sequoia. I responded that Apple states Sequoia is not compatible with the MacBook Air prior to 2020 to which he disagreed. Hmmm. Am I starting to sense some classic big company 'silo-ism' here?

What do you smart people think of his suggestion? Should I risk upgrading to Sequoia? What could go wrong?

That sounds awful, I'm so sorry to hear how badly this is affecting you. I fortunately no longer have to do paid work, but this issue is seriously affecting my voluntary work as well as the general personal use that is so important when mobility is already a problem. I explained to Apple Accessibility that I could not supply them with the detailed further information they requested, and received a courteous reply:

We appreciate your time and efforts to help us document the Dictation concerns. We understand and honor your perspective and will file your feedback with the available data. Submitting logs and other supporting data is optional.

Our team will continue to monitor the investigation’s progress and follow up if we receive notice of a fix or workaround. 

For now, I'm resorting to dictating anything lengthy into my Iphone and then picking up the text on my MacBook, which I think could reasonably be described as less than satisfactory!

Dear Enver, I have tried every combination one can think of, including "Force Quit Messages, and relaunch". It DOES NOT WORK. I appreciate your attempts to offer help, but please stop offering ineffective advice. DOES NOT WORK.

I just received the following email from Apple. Not exactly what I would call encouraging.

"I am C___ and I am a co-worker of S___.

I am letting you know that the engineers have the required information.

Once they have next steps I will follow up with you.

Thank you for your patience and understanding."

I discovered the same thing using an inexpensive, wired, external microphone connected directly to the MacBook. In fact, I am dictating this right now.

I believe this is the fifth or six time in a row when Apple has failed to find resolve a problem and I had to either fix it on my own or through these forms. Power to the people!!

It has now been eight days since I've heard from anyone at Apple. Early in this process, I would hear from my senior advisor almost daily. Since I have limited experience dealing with Mac iOS issues and Apple's Engineering department, some questions come to mind:

1. Is it normal for Apple to go silent like this for several days?

2. Should I assume that Apple will eventually get back to me?

3. What is the likelihood that Apple will find a solution to this problem?

just updated today and started experiencing symptoms and issues similar to those others have reported, including Siri not launching when I click on the icon. I spent several hours with a Senior Advisor, trying various Siri and Dictation settings, but nothing worked. Initially, she thought the issue was with Siri not functioning properly, which in turn affected Dictation. However, when I first set up my MacBook Air in 2018, I skipped the "Hey Siri" setup and have been able to use Dictation without issues ever since.

The problem only started after upgrading to Sonoma 14.7.1. Before ending the call, I remembered seeing something about adding EarPods, though I only have standard earpieces. I connected them to my Mac, double-clicked the keyboard shortcut that I've set up for Dictation, and it started working again. I noticed that you don’t have to speak directly into the microphone—just plug it into your Mac, leave it on the table, and Dictation will transcribe as you speak.

After checking comments from other users, I saw a few mentioned using this same technique. It worked for them too. Thanks okclem and alexcosmix.

Hi Ryan, the work-around that many of us are using is to plug any kind of external microphone into the headphone socket and use that instead of the internal one. Bizarrely this seems to work when all the other suggestions have failed. I've let Apple Accessibility know, and they have passed the message on to the appropriate engineers. Still hoping for a proper solution!

If this doesn't work, Force Quit Messages, and relaunch.