AVSpeechSynthesizer is broken on iOS 17 in Xcode 15

Question

When you initialize AVSpeechSynthesizer as View prorety in SwiftUI project in Xcode 15 with iOS 17 simulator, you get some comments in console:

Failed to get sandbox extensions
Query for com.apple.MobileAsset.VoiceServicesVocalizerVoice failed: 2
#FactoryInstall Unable to query results, error: 5
Unable to list voice folder
Query for com.apple.MobileAsset.VoiceServices.GryphonVoice failed: 2
Unable to list voice folder
Unable to list voice folder
Query for com.apple.MobileAsset.VoiceServices.GryphonVoice failed: 2
Unable to list voice folder

When you try to run utterance inside a Button as synthesizer.speak(AVSpeechUtterance(string: "iOS 17 broke TextToSpeech")), you get endless stream of warnings that repeaths on and on in console like this:

AddInstanceForFactory: No factory registered for id <CFUUID 0x60000024f200> F8BB1C28-BAE8-11D6-9C31-00039315CD46
Cannot find executable for CFBundle 0x600003b2cd20 </Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Volumes/iOS_21A328/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Profiles/Runtimes/iOS 17.0.simruntime/Contents/Resources/RuntimeRoot/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/TextToSpeechMauiSupport.framework> (not loaded)
Failed to load first party audio unit from TextToSpeechMauiSupport.framework
Could not instantiate audio unit. Error=Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-3000 "(null)"
Could not instantiate audio unit. Error=Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-3000 "(null)"
Could not instantiate audio unit. Error=Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-3000 "(null)"
Could not instantiate audio unit. Error=Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-3000 "(null)"
Could not instantiate audio unit. Error=Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-3000 "(null)"
Couldn't find audio unit for request SSML Length: 40, Voice: [AVSpeechSynthesisProviderVoice 0x600002127e30] Name: Samantha, Identifier: com.apple.voice.compact.en-US.Samantha, Supported Languages (
    "en-US"
), Age: 0, Gender: 0, Size: 0, Version: (null)
VoiceProvider: Could not start synthesis for request SSML Length: 40, Voice: [AVSpeechSynthesisProviderVoice 0x600002127e30] Name: Samantha, Identifier: com.apple.voice.compact.en-US.Samantha, Supported Languages (
    "en-US"
), Age: 0, Gender: 0, Size: 0, Version: (null), converted from tts request [TTSSpeechRequest 0x600003709680] iOS 17 broke TextToSpeech language: en-US footprint: compact rate: 0.500000 pitch: 1.000000 volume: 1.000000
Failed to speak request with error: Error Domain=TTSErrorDomain Code=-4010 "(null)". Attempting to speak again with fallback identifier: com.apple.voice.compact.en-US.Samantha

CPU is under pressure (more than 100%). AVSpeechSynthesizer doesn't speak. All works fine on iOS 16.

The code of View:

import SwiftUI
import AVFoundation

struct ContentView: View {
    let synthesizer = AVSpeechSynthesizer()
    
    var body: some View {
        VStack {
            Button {
                synthesizer.speak(AVSpeechUtterance(string: "iOS 17 broke TextToSpeech"))
            } label: {
                Text("speak")
            }
            .buttonStyle(.borderedProminent)

        }
        .padding()
    }
}

#Preview {
    ContentView()
}

On the real device nothing at all happened.

The same happens to my production app. I have so much crashes related to TextToSpeach and iOS 17. What's going on?

AVFoundation

8.7k

Posted by

stopthatnoise

Reply

Faced the same issue and tried changing the voice from samantha to fred and that worked for me. Ref: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/735618

—
s43
That probably is just a band aid. I'm noticing all sorts of strange behavior where speech synthesizer just stops for certain voices and not others, for certain speech strings and not others.

—
Macho Man Randy Savage
@s43 that works, thx!! Still weird that it happens tho, we are almost at midlife of iOS 17, it should have been fixed by now...

—
edvilme

Answer 1

Check out these related threads:

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/730639?answerId=765237022#765237022

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/737685

-- Appears every app using AVSpeechSynthesizer has undefined behavior on iOS 17. This is blocking me from pushing an update I've been working on for months.

Posted by

Macho Man Randy Savage

AVSpeechSynthesizer is broken on iOS 17 in Xcode 15

Replies