Weird auto insert of the word “Paragraph” when using dictation

[StumpyBloke]

Think this has only happened during the last two betas of iOS 14+ the GM.

When using dictation in any application, and this is very random, when I say the words ‘full stop’ so that it adds a . to the end of my text it will randomly also add the word paragraph with a capital P. So it looks like this

. Paragraph

I have deleted the custom dictionaries and words et cetera and this lasts for a short while but it’s come back again. I have now done a full reset and set up as new on my phone and the problem still exists. Unfortunately I can’t do anything to guarantee it’s replication but it does happen every single day at least once. In fact today it’s happened twice.

I am on the public release of 14.0.1 and it still occurs. I did raise it as an issue using the feedback app on the previous betas.

Anyone aware of this or had similar?

 

[0128672]

I don't have any clues to suggest, but that is very strange! Hope you can get to the bottom of this mystery.

Edited: actually, I'll test it in a bit with the same phrase.

 

[0128672]

I tested this in the Notes app and in Word using the phrase "full stop" at the end of a sentence, and can't reproduce the issue. It does sound like a bug.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Thanks for testing. It’s just done it again within two minutes of using my phone this morning.

It’s almost as if AutoCorrect is getting confused. Because very often I do say the words “full stop” followed by “new paragraph”. And if I remember rightly, when I’ve reset the keyboard it won’t happen for a few days.

I might reset the keyboard again.

 

[0128672]

I wonder if it is in any related to the "Learn from this App" Siri setting for various apps you might use for dictation. If it is, that's a rather odd one indeed. I keep that setting disabled for all apps.

Actually I found something related in an Apple community discussion, so lots of commiseration but no solutions:

Microphone has started adding the word "c… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[StumpyBloke]

Yes I’ve read through that thread as well. Very similar problem except they don’t seem to have ever used the words that are affecting their phones. It really is a bizarre problem. I guess I’ll just have to keep an eye on it. Paragraph thanks again for your feedback.

Edit: there you go it’s done it again. On my last sentence. I won’t edit it so you can see what it does. Paragraph

Edit 2: And again. It’s actually getting more frequent.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Right, I have reset the keyboard once more. About a couple of hours later its started doing the same thing. I am convinced it’s taking what I have said when saying the words ‘full stop new paragraph’ and attempting to AutoCorrect but why wouldn’t it add “new paragraph” rather than just “paragraph”.

 

[0128672]

Good question. What happens if you say "full stop new line"?

 

[StumpyBloke]

Good question. What happens if you say "full stop new line"?

Excellent question, I will try that from now on. I’ve reset the keyboard again with a view to not saying my usual phrase to see if it automatically adds it. But what you suggested is a great idea, thank you. Paragraph

And as you can see it’s just added the word in that sentence above even though I only said “full stop”. Paragraph

And again. I give up

 

[StumpyBloke]

I honestly don’t know what to do now. I reset the keyboard again and restarted the phone and it’s already adding Paragraph again and I haven’t said it once.

 

[0128672]

Just a thought about something I mentioned earlier--and yes, it's a bit of a shot in the dark--delete and re-add one of the apps this happens with. After re-installing it, disable the Siri & Search > Learn from this app setting. Turn off all Keyboard settings (Auto-Cap down to "." Shortcut). Restart your phone and see what happens.

Also I feel it's important to report this as a bug via apple.com/feedback. Paragraph (just kidding)

 

[StumpyBloke]

Just a thought about something I mentioned earlier--and yes, it's a bit of a shot in the dark--delete and re-add one of the apps this happens with. After re-installing it, disable the Siri & Search > Learn from this app setting. Turn off all Keyboard settings (Auto-Cap down to "." Shortcut). Restart your phone and see what happens.

Also I feel it's important to report this as a bug via apple.com/feedback. Paragraph (just kidding)

Thanks. Might give that a go. I’ll see if I’ve got time today. And of course I’ll feedback the results.

Yes I reported it ages ago via that link. If I go back onto any more betas I will report it through the feedback app as well.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Just a thought about something I mentioned earlier--and yes, it's a bit of a shot in the dark--delete and re-add one of the apps this happens with. After re-installing it, disable the Siri & Search > Learn from this app setting. Turn off all Keyboard settings (Auto-Cap down to "." Shortcut). Restart your phone and see what happens.

Also I feel it's important to report this as a bug via apple.com/feedback. Paragraph (just kidding)

Hi again. I don’t think it’s practical to do what you suggested because it does it in any app that you can put text in, both stock and third-party. I was just dictating a message in the eBay app and it did it twice. It does it in Tapatalk, notes, you name it. It’s just so sporadic and random it seems.

This problem did not occur during the first rounds of iOS 14 betas.

 

[0128672]

The idea was to test whether disabling "Learn from this app" after a fresh install might have made a difference, but I can understand your thinking on this.

 

[StumpyBloke]

The idea was to test whether disabling "Learn from this app" after a fresh install might have made a difference, but I can understand your thinking on this.

I’ve just got off the phone with Apple support and they’ve raised it with a senior technician who have spoken to. I’ll explain the situation and she’s going to look into it and give me a call tomorrow afternoon with any updates she might have.

The only thing it would seem I haven’t done as a troubleshooting is to restore from iTunes. I really don’t want to go down that route again because it’s so much work: I did a reset all settings and set up from new last weekend.

Thanks again for your help and I’ll update this thread when I’ve got some more news.

 

[Jgpsolo]

Think this has only happened during the last two betas of iOS 14+ the GM.

When using dictation in any application, and this is very random, when I say the words ‘full stop’ so that it adds a . to the end of my text it will randomly also add the word paragraph with a capital P. So it looks like this

. Paragraph

I have deleted the custom dictionaries and words et cetera and this lasts for a short while but it’s come back again. I have now done a full reset and set up as new on my phone and the problem still exists. Unfortunately I can’t do anything to guarantee it’s replication but it does happen every single day at least once. In fact today it’s happened twice.

I am on the public release of 14.0.1 and it still occurs. I did raise it as an issue using the feedback app on the previous betas.

Anyone aware of this or had similar?

Just to let you know, I’ve also noticed the exact same bizarre behaviour you have described.

I frequently use dictation and dictate quickly in my job. The “full stop new paragraph” phrase is used a lot and I wondered if it was a strange quirk of “learning from my speech”. Either way, you’re not alone. It is infuriating.

Did you get anywhere with it?

 

[StumpyBloke]

Just to let you know, I’ve also noticed the exact same bizarre behaviour you have described.

I frequently use dictation and dictate quickly in my job. The “full stop new paragraph” phrase is used a lot and I wondered if it was a strange quirk of “learning from my speech”. Either way, you’re not alone. It is infuriating.

Did you get anywhere with it?

Thanks for your reply.

I am still liaising with Apple, and just yesterday they took some enhanced logs from my iPhone. The lady I spoke to is going to raise it with the developers.

It really is a ridiculous bug, and I’ve actually managed to get it to do it with other words i use a lot as well. And also when I was dictating into my Apple Watch a few days ago we did it on that as well. I don’t know though if when dictating on the watch it is always talking to the phone and it’s actually the phone doing it?

So just to confirm, is your issue identical to mine or a variation thereof?

 

[Jgpsolo]

Thanks for your reply.

I am still liaising with Apple, and just yesterday they took some enhanced logs from my iPhone. The lady I spoke to is going to raise it with the developers.

It really is a ridiculous bug, and I’ve actually managed to get it to do it with other words i use a lot as well. And also when I was dictating into my Apple Watch a few days ago we did it on that as well. I don’t know though if when dictating on the watch it is always talking to the phone and it’s actually the phone doing it?

So just to confirm, is your issue identical to mine or a variation thereof?

I’d say identical. It’s the word “Paragraph” appearing after a full stop intermittently but annoyingly frequently on iPadOS 14.0.1. I find it can sometimes go away for a bit if I stop and restart the dictation, but it might come back when I start dictating the next time.

 

[StumpyBloke]

I’d say identical. It’s the word “Paragraph” appearing after a full stop intermittently but annoyingly frequently on iPadOS 14.0.1. I find it can sometimes go away for a bit if I stop and restart the dictation, but it might come back when I start dictating the next time.

That is indeed identical. It only started for me on the last, IIRC, two public iOS 14.0 betas. I’ve used dictation a lot for years and never had this issue, not once.

 

[Jgpsolo]

I did a little bit more testing. The problem seems more likely to occur if you have done a combination of dictation and typing. For example, I’m dictating this at the moment and I don’t plan on touching the keyboard. If I were to stop and type another sentence, then go back to dictating, it would likely occur.

Interestingly, it often underlines full stops in blue (to signify it’s heard something ambiguous) and seems to want to suggest “. Paragraph”, when I’ve actually just said “full stop”.

iOS 14 changed the way the on-board speech processing happens somehow, so I think this is probably a bug in the algorithm that learns your speech preferences when it hears things you frequently say. Who knows...perhaps the Neural Engine is adding in something that wasn’t there. Machine learning problems?

 

[StumpyBloke]

I’m pretty sure for the issue to happen on mine I don’t have to you have typed anything at all. In fact I am 99% sure about it (always that little niggle of doubt though isn’t there). It’s also quite random as well.

I’ve done a hell of a lot of dictating today mostly on the Tapatalk app and it hasn’t done it once. When it’s been at its worst it’s been doing it pretty much every other sentence.

I will of course update you as and when I hear anything back from Apple.

Really appreciate your feedback though, glad it’s just not me but sorry it’s happening for you as well.

To add, I am going to email the Apple representative back now and point them to this thread so they can see that isn’t just affecting me.

 

[WombleLancs]

I'm having exactly the same problem on both my iPhone SE (2nd Gen) and my iPad Pro. It happens in any app which uses dictation - Pages, Notes, Messages, WhatsApp etc.

Sometimes, I will dictate a message and say 'full stop' very slowly, and then wait a second - and then just as I hit 'send' it adds the word 'Paragraph'. Some of my friends are starting to think I'm weird!

 

[StumpyBloke]

I’m sick to death of it. I’m also sick to death of Apples attitude towards it. Paragraph I messaged them again last week and I’ve had no reply. Oh and look it’s added the word paragraph there. You can’t even do basic things on iPhones these days without something playing up. Really, I’ve had enough.

I’ve got a contact in the executives office who is asked me to email her with any long-standing issues. I think I’m gonna pointer in the direction of this. It’s been going on since 14.1 which is now months and absolutely nothing has been done about it.

 

[Twitter Bloke]

I've had the same problem and solved it – at least on my iphone and iPad for dictating into Twitter.

In Twitter settings, I turned off Speech Recognition. NB this does not mean you are disabling dictation in Twitter.

I assume it means Twitter is no longer listening for commands specific to the Twitter app.

FYI, I never had this problem in Outlook and have just checked the outlook settings and noticed that Speech Recognition is already switched off so for the moment, I think this is the issue (?)

Try it – I hope it helps.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Thanks for your update. Unfortunately it is systemwide for those of us with this particular problem therefore it happens in any application and it’s still very random.

I hope iOS 15 addresses it, but I very much doubt it.

One thing that does give me a glimmer of hope however is according to a video I watched yesterday, iOS 15 doesn’t rely on pinging to Apple‘s servers for dictation, it’s all done on the phone (which is ridiculous it’s never worked like that before) so hopefully that might help.