When your Sony Xperia 1 VI's predictive text stops working, it can really slow you down. You might find it's not suggesting the next word, autocorrect is making strange changes, or the whole feature has just gone silent. The good news is this is usually a quick software hiccup you can fix yourself.
Restart Your Xperia
This is the simplest and often most effective step. A quick restart clears out temporary glitches in the system that might be affecting the keyboard. If you haven't rebooted your phone in a while, I'd start with this one.
Just press and hold the power button until the power menu appears, then tap "Restart." For a more forceful reset if the phone is acting sluggish, you can perform a force restart by holding the Power button and Volume Up button together for about ten seconds until the phone vibrates and reboots.
Check Your Keyboard Settings
Sometimes the predictive text feature gets accidentally turned off. Open the app you use for typing, like Messages or Chrome, and pull up the keyboard. Look for a settings icon (it often looks like a gear) on the top row of the keyboard itself and tap it.
Navigate to the text correction or prediction settings. Make sure the toggle for "Show suggestion strip" or "Next-word suggestions" is switched on. You can also try toggling it off and back on again to refresh the feature.
Clear the Gboard Cache and Data
The Xperia 1 VI uses Google's Gboard as its default keyboard. Like any app, it stores temporary cache files that can sometimes become corrupted. Clearing this cache is safe and won't delete your personal dictionary or saved words.
Go to Settings > Apps > See all apps. Find and select "Gboard" from the list. Tap on Storage & cache, then hit "Clear cache." If that doesn't work, you can go a step further and tap "Clear storage" or "Clear data."
Be aware that clearing data will reset Gboard to its default settings, so you'll lose any custom dictionaries, themes, or layout changes you've made. You'll need to re-grant any permissions it asks for.
Update Gboard and System Software
An outdated app can have bugs that break features like predictions. Open the Google Play Store, tap your profile icon, and go to "Manage apps & device." Check under "Updates available" to see if Gboard is listed.
It's also wise to check for a full system update. Sony's software updates for the Xperia line can be less frequent than some competitors, but they do contain important fixes. Go to Settings > System > System update to check for and install any available Android updates.
Verify Your Language and Input Settings
Predictive text needs to know which language you're typing in to work properly. Go to Settings > System > Languages & input > On-screen keyboard > Gboard > Languages.
Ensure the correct language (like English - United States) is added and selected. If you have multiple languages enabled, you can tap on each one and check that "Use system language" and the prediction options are enabled for it.
Try a Different Keyboard App
If Gboard continues to have issues, you can temporarily switch to another keyboard to see if the problem is app-specific. This helps confirm whether it's a Gboard bug or a deeper system issue.
Install a keyboard like Microsoft SwiftKey from the Play Store. After installing, go back to Settings > System > Languages & input > On-screen keyboard and toggle on the new keyboard. You can then switch between them by tapping the keyboard icon in your navigation bar when typing.
If predictions work perfectly on the new keyboard, the problem is isolated to Gboard. You can then try uninstalling and reinstalling Gboard from the Play Store as a final fix for that app.