Alt+Super+s fails to start Orca screen reader after 15.10 live image boots up

[Laszlo Papp]

I am totally blind. I downloaded Ubuntu Mate 15.10 32-bit ISO image to try it out and install it later if I like it. I successfully "burned" the image to an USB drive and booted it up. I heard the bongo drum sound (so my sound card should be okay) and pressed the Alt+Super+s key combination to launch Orca screen reader, as the Ubuntu Accessibility Wiki suggests. But instead of hearing Orca talk I heard nothing. I retried this multiple times with the same result.

[Laszlo Papp (papp-laszlo3)]

I've taken the info about the usage of Alt+Super+s with live images from the following page:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Accessibility

Subtitle "Enabling the screen reader", one but last paragraph: "When you boot the live CD, you should hear a bongo drum sound. At this point, you can go ahead and enable Orca. Once again, the keyboard shortcut Alt + Super + S is used to enable orca. Orca should start speaking, and from this point you can select your language, and either boot into a live Ubuntu desktop by selecting the "Try Ubuntu" push button, or you can elect to install Ubuntu by selecting the "Install Ubuntu" push button."

[gravy45 (gravy45)]

It could be that Orca is not enabled in the startup applications on the live image (32-bit). I know it is when the 64-bit image is installed, because Alt + Super + S starts the screen reading. One quick check to try is to open a terminal (do this with ctrl-alt-t). Then at the prompt type orca and then a carriage return, and hopefully it says, "Screen reader on". If this gets it working, it is likely that Orca is not enabled in the startup applications for that 32-bit live image. I hope to test either with the 32-bit 15.10 image or the 16.04 alpha/beta image(s), within a couple of weeks.

[Laszlo Papp (papp-laszlo3)]

I've performed thesuggested quick test and yes Orca came up talking after launching it from the terminal. I was able to select a language and to find the push buttons with speech feedback.
However if I chose "Try Ubuntu" screen reading stopped entirely and the system talked no more. I know that it didn't freeze because I was able to shut it down: power switch - bang sound - Enter key - shutdown.
I tried starting/restarting Orca via Alt/Super+s and by issuing the orca and orca --replace commands from the terminal (ctrl-alt-t) and also from the Run dialog (Alt+F2), but nothing worked, the system remained silent.
Interestingly the installer talked and I was able to complete the first two screens, but I quit afterwards because I was a bit reluctant to install then ...
Is it possible that screen reader accessibility is not enabled on the Mate desktop that the live image brings up after activating the "Try Ubuntu" button?
Should I file a separate bug for this?

[Laszlo Papp (papp-laszlo3)]

I filed a bug for the scenario in Comment #3: Bug #1546317

[gravy45 (gravy45)]

One better way to help on this one is to assist in testing MATE 16.04 (currently at Alpha II release), since 15.10 will be obsoleted not too long after April 2016. There are specific test cases for the install procedure using the product, simulating being visually impaired. I have tested it in the past, found issues, and reported them through the Alpha testing tracker but I don't believe the larger Ubuntu team fixed them from the release from 15.04 to 15.10.

Marking this report as a bug duplicate of #1546317.