Siri won't start shortcuts and replies "Sorry, I don't understand"

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Level 1

5 points

Siri won't start shortcuts and replies "Sorry, I don't understand"

Hello All,

I have a iPhone 13 Pro with IOS 18.2.1.

I have several shortcuts on my welcome screen and I used to be able to start these shortcuts by saying "Hey Siri, shortcut xxx" with xxx the name of the shortcut on the welcome.

It worked to at least a year and recently 3-6 months, all is Siri reply is always the same: "Sorry, I don't understand" (translated from French). I suspect an update has broken the feature which was really helpful...

Anyone else know if this is a (known) bug ?

Thank you,

lamaZZe

iPhone 13 Pro, iOS 18

Posted on Jan 26, 2025 7:04 AM

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Answer 1

6x6

Level 6

18,501 points

Jan 26, 2025 10:57 AM in response to lamaZZe

Siri can be fussy. Try renaming your shortcuts so their names do not “conflict” with other things Siri could recognize. Otherwise, in English, you could try “Hey Siri, run shortcut xxx” (désolé, je ne sais pas quel pourrait être l’équivalent en français).

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Answer 2

lamaZZe Author

Level 1

5 points

Jan 26, 2025 11:04 AM in response to 6x6

Believe me I've tried dozens of ways including renaming the shortcut with something you cannot confuse with anything (like naming bibibobo), it's either "sorry I dont understand" or "I cant find xxx location" or "I cant find xxx song".

What's crazy is that it worked for months....

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Answer 3

6x6

Level 6

18,501 points

Jan 26, 2025 11:18 AM in response to lamaZZe

Since iOS 18 it seems that Siri has been focused on place names or people’s names. I saw a few threads mentioning that Siri now calls the wrong person when it used to do it just fine.

I renamed one of my shortcuts to “bibibobo” and it ran fine from the Home Screen by just saying “bibibobo”. I wonder now if this issue on your end isn’t with the Lock Screen.

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