Screen Reader problem - Storyline V3.95.33670.0 Worked in June '24

I am working on a course requiring screen reader compliance. The solution we were using was to have a first page where a user could select whether they were using a screen reader or not, and if they were, a variable is set to turn off all audio to reduce confusion. Also, our setup is to have all of the visual layout on the page and almost none of it accessible to a screen reader while there is a text box below a white layer at the bottom of the layers panel that contains all of the audio text that the screen reader can find and read. 

This had been working well. We would navigate to a page and could select the focus order to only go to the accessible items which meant there are generally 3-5 items on a page being seen by JAWS. Now, this system doesn't seem to be working at all. The JAWS reader is not finding the reader text that it did 5 months ago. Now, the reader can find most of the buttons but almost none of the text even if the text box is set to be accessible. 

I have moved pages into a new file - that didn't work. 

Updated Storyline and JAWS - didn't work

Confirmed accessible text and focus order - no change

Made a blank file (attached) with the same setup of text - only the grayed out text should be accessible by JAWS. - Doesn't work for me on Chrome, Brave, Edge after clearing the cache, etc. 

Has anyone had the same or similar issues? If so, how did you solve? Seems like a potential bug. My colleague has confirmed the same functionality through testing in his browser. 

Thank you, 

Tom

Screenreader text layer is visible: 

Focus order seems appropriate.