Steps to reproduce:

1. Make sure that Unicode normalization is enabled.
2. Open any text editor, e.g. Notepad.
3. Type or insert a combining diacritic, e.g. acute accent (U+0301), then try to read it, e.g. by pressing the Left Arrow.

Actual behavior:

Nothing is spoken.

Expected behavior:

The entered combining diacritic should be read in this case.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Installed

NVDA version:

NVDA alpha-51938,2be81ed5 (2026.1.0.51938)

Windows version:

Windows 11 24H2 (OS Build 26100.4946) X64

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

Yes

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

NVDA 2024.4.2 is the last stable version unaffected by this bug. Since it didn't have normalization enabled by default, I enabled it manually.

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

Yes

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

Yes