As a workaround in the short term, you can force gdm to continue to use X, with

WaylandEnable=false

in the [daemon] section of /etc/gdm/custom.conf.

I've just spoken to joanie on the accessibility channel on gnome.org. I have no idea if this is it, but there was a similar issue in gnome shell with wayland that can be fixed by adding a missing window:activate event. I have no idea if this will work with gdm, but it's worth a shot. Failing that, how do I gather debug info so that people can see what is going on?

I forgot to add that I varified that wayland is indeed what's keeping orca from reading the gdm window. I did this by first changing wayland-enable to false, and restarting. Orca was immediately able to see the gdm window, although there were a couple of unlabeled buttons. That's a different issue though. I then turned wayland back on with wayland-enable=true, and restarted. Orca was no longer able to see the gdm window. Since gnome 3.16 is already out the door, could this possibly get fixed by 3.16.1? I hate to ask, but this is very important for blind people, including me.

<mclasen> so, it seems that orca doesn't work with gnome-shell under wayland
<mclasen> does anybody have a hunch where that breakage would be ?
<mclasen> somewhere in clutter ?
<ebassi> mclasen: Possibly; I landed a commit before spinning 1.22.0 that didn't just assume that you could ask for the screen coordinates and the x11 backend would reply
<ebassi> mclasen: But to be fair I know nearly nothing about Orca on Wayland
<mclasen> thats a potential fix, then ?
<mclasen> I don't think orca should have too close ties to the display server... all of a11y is running over its own bus
<mclasen> I still have clutter 1.21.8 here
<ebassi> mclasen: fmuellner wrote the patch originally, so he may know something
<fmuellner> mclasen, ebassi: no, that was just a drive-by fix when going through fedora bugmail
<mclasen> well, I have clutter 1.22.0 incoming here, I'll report back whether that makes a difference
<infapi00> hmm mclasen just quit
<infapi00> in any case
<infapi00> fwiw
<infapi00> what depends on wayland
<infapi00> or in other words
<infapi00> what doesn't work in wayland world
<infapi00> is stuff like setting mouse position, tracking mouse position and others
<infapi00> in theory, gnome-shell accessibles should be exposed
<infapi00> the accessible hierarchy
<infapi00> not sure why it fails specifically on gdm view
<infapi00> that is the bug joanmarie diggs pointed to me today
<infapi00> bug 746627
<halfline> infapi00: it's not just the gdm view
<halfline> infapi00: it's all shell ui
<halfline> (under wayland)
<mclasen> nope, clutter 1.22 doesn't change things her
<mclasen> e
<infapi00> halfline, ok, I assumed that it was another gdm bug
<infapi00> we fixed one specific gdm-view bug last week
<halfline> so i guess a11y on clutter is broken with wayland backend
<halfline> yea i remember the user list issue
<infapi00> well, basically accessibility support under wayland is getting behind
<infapi00> but it is true that is should be somewhat functional
<infapi00> and not totally broken
<halfline> well it's not totally broken, gtk applications work
<halfline> just clutter stuff doesn't
<halfline> (like the login screen, overview, etc)
<infapi00> well, yes I was still talking about gnome-shell
<halfline> so maybe some call to install event listeners or something is getting made in the X11 backend that's not getting made in the wayland backend?
<halfline> something like that
<infapi00> halfline, I don't have right now a wayland system
<infapi00> but if you have
<fmuellner> mclasen: I would have been surprised - the bug was that the x11 codepath was used even on wayland, and there was a big: "FIXME: implement for other backends" there ...
<infapi00> could you try it with accerciser?
<mclasen> I see that code now, I think 
<mclasen> _cally_actor_get_top_level_origin ?
<infapi00> mclasen, that code is just to compute the position of the accessibles
<mclasen> I know
<infapi00> but if orca is not exposing anything
<infapi00> that means that the accessible tree is not around
<infapi00> halfline, could you try accerciser and see if under gnome-shell, any accessible child is around?
<mclasen> lets see if I can get in a wayland session to sniff around
<rtcm> just a guess: perhaps gnome-shell being the display server, starts before the a11y dbus daemon is up and then doens't connect?
<halfline> infapi00: yup, they're there
<infapi00> halfline, how many direct children has gnome-shell?
<mclasen> fmuellner: I did a 3.14.10 release right after 3.16.0 (for gtk...)
<halfline> infapi00: 1
<halfline> (window)
<infapi00> in theory it should have just one, the stage
<infapi00> yes, the one with window role
<infapi00> and the window child has more children?
<halfline> yup!
<halfline> 34 panel objects
<infapi00> hmmm
<infapi00> well, this is strange
<infapi00> so the children is there
<halfline> so the tree is there
<halfline> but not getting sent to orca
<halfline> or maybe orca is ignoring it?
<halfline> i guess must be the latter
<infapi00> halfline, well, but if accerciser get the info
<infapi00> orca should also be able to get it
<halfline> infapi00: right exactly
<infapi00> well, is somewhat late here
<halfline> so must be an orca bug
<infapi00> but I will ping joanie
<infapi00> and see if we can find what is happening
<halfline> thanks
<joanie> hey guys
<joanie> halfline: infapi00 caught me up
<mclasen> hey joanie, thanks for coming by
<joanie> could you do me a favor?
<joanie> https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca/Debugging
<joanie> use #2
<joanie> #1 is for users
<joanie> I'd like to see what Orca is getting
<joanie> accessible-signal-wise
<joanie> and why it's not responding, assuming it's getting signals
<joanie> later today I can update my f22
<mclasen> halfline: can you do that in your wayland session ?
* halfline tries
<joanie> fwiw, after infapi00 fixed the bugs he pointed out, Orca worked with gnome-shell
<halfline> joanie: nothing after INFO: Settings manager activated
<joanie> nothing at all?
<joanie> you should have tons of spewage
<halfline> nope, nothing
<halfline> the whole file is
<halfline> Attempt to load orca-customizations from /home/rstrode/.local/share/orca/orca-customizations.py succeeded.
<halfline> INFO: Settings manager activated
<joanie> what if you interact with a gtk+ app
<joanie> gtk3-deom
<joanie> demo too
<halfline> ahh, i just gdb attached to orca and it's sitting at a seg fault
<joanie> heh
<joanie> what segfaulted?
<halfline> let me install debuginfo so i can get a better trace
<joanie> thanks
<joanie> I'm updating F22 now
<joanie> mondays are always so mondayish
<halfline> of course it's not crashing now... trace from before : http://fpaste.org/201704/14271402/
* joanie looks
<joanie> there was a timing issue related to the mouse review featurs
<joanie> ugh
<joanie> feature
<joanie> do you have that enabled?
<halfline> i don't think so. what command do i run to find out for sure?
<joanie> get into orca's preferences
<joanie> which we hide because they are not pretty
<joanie> ;)
<joanie> insert + space
<joanie> having said that, it concerns me that Orca is spitting up that fast
<joanie> without any debugging output
<halfline> neither present tooltips or speak object under mouse is checked
<joanie> good
<joanie> or bad, as that was my suspect
<joanie> could you try accerciser's event listener?
<joanie> not just looking at the tree
* joanie brings up accerciser
<joanie> and read before you do
<halfline> so hang on the file has data in it now!
<joanie> oh yay!
* joanie waits "happily"
<halfline> i guess before it was segfaulting right away
<halfline> but now that i can't get it to segfault, the file is filling up
<joanie> it spews a lot of debug output
<joanie> so we can hunt down elusive bugs
<joanie> if you can get orca running, but failing to speak as you navigate in gnome-shell
<halfline> here's the first 4000 lines of the file http://ur1.ca/jyvi8
<joanie> with the keyboard
* joanie looks
<halfline> actually let me regenerate the file from a pristine state
<halfline> and tell you exactly what operations i'm performing
<joanie> hold on
<joanie> will you disable braille?
<joanie> so those tracebacks are gone
<joanie> orca will keep trying on the off chance the user connected his/her display after
<joanie> but it's noise for us
<halfline> sure
<joanie> thanks!
<halfline> wow it's quite large!
<joanie> yup
<joanie> that's why you disable it after
<joanie> ;)
<joanie> whatcha got?
<joanie> search for KEYBOARDEVENT
<halfline> http://people.freedesktop.org/~halfline/login-go-to-overview-type-terminal-leave-overview.txt
* joanie looks
<halfline> so that's me logging in, going to the overview (with the windows key), typing "terminal" into the search overview (but not enter), then hitting the super key again
<halfline> all the events seem to bethere
<halfline> i wonder if sound works at all
<halfline> oh wait, of course it does, gtk apps work
<halfline> let me verify they work /this/ session
<joanie> i only see one thing spoken
<mclasen> I have heard orca in your cube a while ago
<joanie> 'screen reader on'
<halfline> heh, gtk apps don't speak anymore
<joanie> kill speech-dispatcher
<kalev> killall speech-dispatcher :)
<joanie> hahaha
#gnome-shell
<kalev> I know the trick too! :)
<joanie> you learn it 
* joanie rolls her eyes
<joanie> a simpler test -- to eliminate lousy presentation of search results -- would be alt+tab
<joanie> or arrowing around items in the dash
<halfline> sure one moment
<joanie> or arrowing around search results
<joanie> k
<joanie> but I think I see missing events
* joanie looks
<halfline> alt-tab http://ur1.ca/jyvjl
* joanie looks at alt-tab first
<joanie> hmmm I thought those buttons had names or labels
<joanie> ah labels
<joanie> ok, something seems to be making orca ignore the selection changes
<joanie> halfline: and if you hold down alt and press and release tab several times rather than once,
<joanie> orca remains silent?
<joanie> there's a bug in gnome-shell if memory serves me related to the first icon
<joanie> I had a hackaround for it
<joanie> but maybe it's no longer working
<halfline> indeed, silent
<halfline> as long as i hold down alt, pressing tab is quiet
<joanie> ok
<joanie> lemme reboot this box and see if I can repro it
<halfline> here's me hitting alt-f2 and typing gnome-terminal
<halfline> http://ur1.ca/jyvk7
<halfline> joanie: ok
<joanie> in theory I'm in a wayland session now
<joanie> and orca is speaking in gnome-shell
<halfline> probably ont
<joanie> how can I be 100% sure i'm in wayland?
<halfline> *not
<halfline> there was a bug in 3.15.92 that makes it lie to you
<halfline> and tell you you're in wayland when you aren't
<joanie> nice
<joanie> :)
<joanie> so what do I need to do in f22 to ensure I'm in wayland?
<kalev> there's a super secret repo with latest 3.16.0 builds, if you want to try updating :)
<joanie> sure kalev 
<halfline> joanie: could download this one file directly too: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=622906
<halfline> or use kalev'd koji static repo
<kalev> for the koji repo, drop this in /etc/yum.repos.d/
<kalev> http://paste.fedoraproject.org/201733/71418951/
<joanie> k
<kalev> and might have to edit them to be enabled=1 or pass --enablerepo to yum
<joanie> ok, almost done
<joanie> brb
...
<joanie> aha. I was overlooking the obvious
<joanie> kalev: I'll triple check and then file a bug
<joanie> but gnome-shell for wayland seems to not be emitting window:activate events
<joanie> as a result, orca doesn't know the user is in gnome-shell
<joanie> mclasen: ^^
<mclasen> aha
<joanie> in retrospect: duh
<mclasen> great detective work
<joanie> ;)
<joanie> not at all
<joanie> I was digging into all of these far less obvious things
<joanie> i'm an idiot sometimes making things harder than they are
<joanie> anyhoo, because I'm an idiot I'm going to verify that *now* I'm not being one
<kalev> joanie: great detective work indeed!
<joanie> kalev: see idiot statement above
<joanie> I should have seen this an hour or so ago
<joanie> proof that two heads are better than one. get it? :P
<kalev> hahahaha
<joanie> kalev: you have an upstream bug opened for this yet?
<kalev> joanie: nope. I never knew about this before mclasen asked about it here.
<joanie> k
<joanie> sorry. phone rang. anyhoo, just field bug 746670

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 746670 ***