[Update: Fixed] 'Ok Google' not working? Assistant's Voice Match feature broken for many

Update (August 08):

Google has fixed the issue. Those of you still facing the glitch with certain languages should also receive the fix soon.

As an update, we have identified the cause of this issue and pushed out a fix to most users, which should finish rolling out in the next few hours.

For those who are still experiencing this problem with certain languages, we hope to also have a fix in place shortly.

Update (August 07):

Some users are reporting the problem has now been resolved for them. All you have to do is reboot your device once.

Update (August 07):

Google confirms the issue.

Many thanks for reporting this issue to us. To confirm, it’s currently being looked into

Original story:

One of the many Google Assistant features is the ability to unlock your Android device with the hot word ‘Ok Google.’ But that only works if the relevant Voice Match settings are enabled.

Of late, a significant number of Android phone users are reporting that the ‘Ok Google’ hot word detection is not working on their devices as the options to access the ‘Voice Match’ feature have greyed out.

Apparently, the latest Google app update (pushed out on August 03) is the culprit here, as complaints started pouring in after that.

The functionality is not accessible, as Voice Match related options – ‘Access with Voice match’, ‘Unlock with Voice Match’ and ‘Voice model’ – have all greyed out.

From Xiaomi to OnePlus to Huawei to Samsung (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15), devices from almost all major Android phone manufacturers are exhibiting the same behavior when it comes to hands-free Google Assistant access.

Take a look at some of the recent tweets to get hold of the problem in question:

https://twitter.com/sharkhark/status/1026278668107177984
https://twitter.com/neilsuri24/status/1026200371461414912
https://twitter.com/Maneet96/status/1026169753574957057
https://twitter.com/Dhruv69952000/status/1025480630505627648

Similar reports can be seen under the Reviews section of Google app’s Play Store listing.

BTW this is not the first time when an issue related to ‘Voice Match’ has come to light. Back in March (this year), Google Assistant users reported that voice training got stuck at ‘Teach the Assistant to recognize your voice‘ screen, rendering the Voice Match feature useless. Though Google claimed to have fixed the problem, users never stopped complaining.

Coming back to the current Voice Match glitch, considering the proliferation of complaints, one of the Top Contributors (at Google Assistant Help forum) at least escalated the matter. Here’s what they shared with those affected:

This is impacting lots of people and has been escalated to the team

Though Google is yet to give an official word on the matter, if the problem lies at their end, we hope they look into what’s broken and do the needful to fix things up soon as the matter is already catching heat. Rest assured, we are keeping an active tab on all related developments and will update as and when anything news worthy comes up.

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