iChat won't Shut UP!

Hi People:

I've used iChat on several occasions just fine. Today, for whatever reason, it's reading all messages sent to me out loud. I tried Edit > Speech -- but that's as far as I got because the options to Start Speaking and to Stop Speaking are both grayed out.

Any ideas? I don't know what setting I must have changed to make this happen but it's really driving me crazy.

Please help and much thanks.

Keith

First, why are you using iChat and not Adium? I highly recommend checking the latter out.

Second, have you gone into system prefs>universal access and seen whats going on there?

DarkestRitual said:

have you gone into system prefs>universal access and seen whats going on there?

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If Voice Over is on, you'd be seeing little black boxes around text that you highlight, I think...

No black boxes, so I guess it's not a voice over issue. I have gone into Sys Prefs but I'm not sure what could be causing iChat (alone) to talk to me. I'm guessing if it were some sort of Universal Access / Assistance kind of thing, it would affect more than just iChat.

Still, I don't understand why the options to Turn Speech Off or On are grayed out while I'm using iChat. Doesn't compute.

It's little issues like these that continue to pop up since I've become a Mac user (back in December) than make me wonder if this thing really does "just work."

Either you have "speak announcements" checked under "Alerts", or you have "Start Speaking" turned on under the "Edit" menu.

Hey chas_m:

Thanks for the info. Since Start Speaking is grayed out (as well as Stop Speaking), I don't think that's it. But I will check the Alerts to see if I've got that item checked. That could be the problem.

Thanks again.
Keith

iChat does not include popups in the basic capabilities. The popups are being generated from a program like Growl. Check: System Preference > Other for add-on programs. If you have Growl. Check: Growl > Applications. I installed Chax and the popups started. I went into Chax in Growl and disabled all the notifications. Problem solved!

Hope this helps!

Karl

toMACsh said:

If Voice Over is on, you'd be seeing little black boxes around text that you highlight, I think...

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First, please forgive my total ignorance of this, or any other, MAC. My husband clicked "on something" and has no idea what he did, so now we have this irritating robot saying EVERY move of the mouse and/or typewritten word...pleaseeeee, I beg you, PLEASEEEEEE help me stop this totally annoying voice...I don't know HOW to go to system>>preferences b/c I'm MAC ignorant...no ability to turn speech on or off is possible in edit drop down...

Try pressing command+fn+F5 and see if it will stop.
Or go to your Applications folder and open System Preferences.
Then click on the Universal Access icon.

And turn off Voice Over

McYukon said:

Try pressing command+fn+F5 and see if it will stop.
Or go to your Applications folder and open System Preferences.
Then click on the Universal Access icon.

And turn off Voice Over

Click to expand...

If I didn't love my husband I think you'd be in trouble!! THANK YOU!! *MUAH*