most native applications running sluggishly with VO saying "not responding" on M1 Mac

I don't experience application sluggishness, but there are likely people on here who will have predicted that your mention of “AppName’ not responding” will have had me reaching for my soapbox.

Sorry Apple, but the nature of this issue and how long it's been around is so far from being excusable. You should be embarrassed at selling people $1000+ computers which routinely freeze for anything up to 10 seconds when simply being asked to browse a webpage. Shame on you.

Rant over

Since little else is done on here but ask for help and almost never get confident well rounded solutions, here's another one. Normally i'm an online, let's fix it in three minutes with a voice chat or screen share type of chick. Knowing there are more than one app that behave like this, make an appointment in your local Apple store and go to them. they may not be able to fix it, but you'll visually show someone, here's why it is happening. Reporting this issue, even multiple times, may finally get apple to look at it. I doubt it as even something as simple as the sound discrepancy I share often doesn't get anything done. I have major doubts there are any real blind engineers or internal testers of voice over. Because if there were, at least a few of the long standing bugs could at least get a look or gasp a mention in the release notes. Oh wait, a pig just flew by. Bottom line, get off the internet, get to the store and start something that isn't just behind a keyboard.

As we stated on other topics, yes, it has no fix, and it's a voiceover issue. M1 powered macs are great in terms of performance, but voiceover has been never properly updated. It's something we experienced for years, not only with m1 mac, the problem is... you know, a lot of people suposed m1 will fix everything making voiceover fast and reliable. It's not the case.
So, again, before getting a mac, put your hands on one if possible, test by yourself what it can and cannot do for you. Use the money back guarranty :if necessary.
I think it will not be fixed any time soon, since m1 is more than a year old and Apple doesn't seem to be working on it at all. It could take years.

I get this on a 2020 intel MBA with 16 GB ram. I was looking to upgrade, depending on what is announced on Tuesday.

OP, you say base model, which would be 8 GB RAM, does anyone know if the problem is less on higher configuration's?

"Not responding" probably means exactly what it says: VoiceOver calls the accessibility API of the application to retrieve some information, such as the next item that should be placed in the VoiceOver cursor. The application doesn't return the information within a given period of time. VoiceOver reports this with a "not responding" message.

This may mean that someone has to fix each application in turn, or the user interface libraries that they're using.

A faster machine may help you, but the real solution is to identify the circumstances in which this occurs and submit bug reports to Apple or to the application developers.

I've heard of people experieincing this type of sluggish performance when they don't have the video hooked up to their Mac. Apparently Apple devices don't like that. The fix was to either plug in a monitor or some sort of dongle that will make the computer think that a monitor is active.

This may not be your problem however if sighted people can see the screen when performance is sluggish.

anyway, just a thought and it might help others.

--Pete

I've heard the same, mac's don't like to run headless, or, more accurately voiceover doesn't like to run on headless machines.

As you are using a MacBook Air, it shouldn't matter whether or not you have an external display connected.

While I occasionally get the announcement that an app is "Not responding," it does not happen for me in every app, with it typically happening in Safari with large or complex webpages on my Intel-based 2018 MacBook Air with 8GB of ram and 500GB of storage.

I'm curious if you've noticed differences with different VoiceOver settings, as this appears to be a VoiceOver specific issue. Like what voice are you using, do you have activities configured, and does this issue occur more often with certain activities than with others, to name just a few possible factors.

If you don't mind the potentially tedious process of reconfiguring VoiceOver, it may be helpful to export all VoiceOver preferences before resetting them. To do this, open VoiceOver Utility and choose File > export VoiceOver preferences, (or press Command-Shift-E) and once saved, choose File > reset all VoiceOver preferences. Then, try to replicate the conditions that cause the issue to occur. If it doesn't occur with VoiceOver's default preferences, try to change a preference, like the voice or activity, and then replicate the conditions until the issue occurs again.

This could be potentially useful information for a bug report, as it could help point engineers toward a specific cause. In addition, it may be helpful to attach the exported VoiceOver preferences to any bug reports to Apple while explaining your observations.

HTH

I've reset my voiceover preferences and, fingers crossed, it does seem to have helped, the obvious downside being that I now no longer have the customisation I want. I suppose it is just a case of adding in changes slowly until it breaks again.