Darrell Hilliker 👨‍🦯♾️📡2d ago
I'm starting day three without #JAWS on my new job. While JAWS is sitting there worrying about its missing authorization code and telling me I have to restart and work in 40-minute mode, #NVDA is humming along giving me exactly what I need to keep working! So now we ask which is the truly professional screen reader? #accessibility #Vispero
Show threadbscross322d ago

@darrell73 I think this goes a bit deeper than which screen reader is more professional. I love NVDA, and have a deep, deep dislike of JAWS. That said, I have to restart NVDA sometimes 20+ times a day. It suffers from stutters, freezes, hangs and sometimes crashes. If an app goes unresponsive, it takes NVDA out. If you're llucky, you can recover with Narrator, or sometimes even just CTRL+ALT+N to restart NVDA. But I've had times where it seems like the entire accessibility stack got taken out.

Try to use Event Viewer with NVDA and see how far you get. Try it with Narrator even - I bet you get a bit farther. Then try it with JAWS. It actually functions. Look at the difference in Visual Studio. There are things Narraotr reads that JAWS doesn't, but the latter tends to be more consistent and pick up more than NVDA does.

We could argue about equal access and being able to use what you pay for, but I think that'd be missing the point. Personally, I'd like to see a bit more from Vispero than restart your computer, but what would a perfect solution be when your license expires? They could take the position that you're not paying for the thing you're attempting to use at that point, so why should you get to use it? I'd like to see a middle ground between that stance and 40 minute mode. At some point though, you have to accept the fact that they're not going to allow you to use a product you're not licensed to use.

Show threadNV Access
@bscross32 @darrell73 Having to restart NVDA multiple times a day definitely isn't expected or usual, and certainly shouldn't be assumed normal. We'd be happy to talk further about what is triggering it (you mentioned Visual Studio, and I can see a search for that brings up a number of issues on our tracker (which may or may not be related): https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20visual%20studio I would definitely want to make sure that any issues you are facing are listed.
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Mar 25 at 10:42pmWeb
Show threadNV Access1d ago
@bscross32 @darrell73 The first thing I would generally recommend where you are seeing issues like this is to press NVDA+q then down arrow to "restart with add-ons disabled" and enter - and see if it still happens. If we can narrow it down to a specific add-on, or to a specific sequence of keystrokes / program usage without add-ons running, that definitely helps track down where the issue is.
Show threadbscross321d ago
@NVAccess @darrell73 It's more than I want to get into if I'm honest. Nothing is related to Visual Studio in this case. I think most of it is machine specific or possibly OS specific since I tend to like to do a reinstallation of Windows every year, and I haven't in the past 2 and a bit.
Show threadNV Access1d ago

@bscross32 @darrell73 That's ok, we're here (or on email at [email protected]) if you ever want to follow up - I was just concerned because regular freezing or crashing definitely isn't normal and IS something we would be interested in resolving if it is affecting multiple users.

Actually your other point is interesting - I used to reinstall Windows (XP, etc) every 6-12 months as well, but I've had this machine for a few years and never reinstalled it, so credit to Microsoft for that.