OpenAI, can you please fix the read aloud tool
Users report the voice feature cuts off mid-message and loops, with bug reports going unanswered since summer 2023.
A significant bug in OpenAI's ChatGPT Read Aloud feature has been plaguing Android users for over nine months, with no official fix in sight. The tool, designed to convert the AI's text responses into spoken audio, malfunctions by abruptly stopping playback mid-sentence and then restarting from the beginning of the message. This looping glitch renders the feature unreliable for listening to longer responses. User reports, including a prominent post on Reddit from u/Synthara360, indicate the problem has persisted since the summer of 2023, with multiple bug reports submitted to OpenAI yielding no resolution.
The ongoing issue highlights a gap in OpenAI's support and maintenance for its widely used mobile applications. While the Read Aloud tool is praised as a "great" accessibility feature, its broken state on a major platform like Android affects users who depend on audio output for multitasking, accessibility, or convenience. The lack of a public response or fix timeline contrasts with OpenAI's rapid deployment of new model capabilities, raising questions about resource allocation for core product stability versus flashy new features. The community is left waiting for a basic quality-of-life update for a tool integral to the mobile ChatGPT experience.
- The Read Aloud bug causes audio playback to cut off and loop to the start, making it unusable for long messages.
- Android users have been reporting the issue since summer 2023 (9+ months) with no fix from OpenAI support.
- The flaw impacts a key accessibility and hands-free utility feature of the popular ChatGPT mobile app.
Why It Matters
It exposes reliability and support gaps in core AI app features that professionals use for accessibility and productivity on the go.