Q: can't download the Enhanced Dictation Engine

I couldn't follow your intructions for step one. I tried pressing (1) SHIFT key, (2) Up arrow key, (3) Command key, and the "G" key simaltaneously.That didn't work. I also tried without the SHIFT key. That didn't work, either, so I got to the Library page by pressing the Option key as I pressed GO from (FINDER) in the menu bar. That produced  a dropdown menu that contained LIBRARY. After that, I found at least 50 Preference-Files files and two or three Preference-Document files and one Preference Copy. I'm thinking that these are not the Library-Preference files you're talking about, so please clarify how you get the correct ones.

I couldn't follow your instructions for step one. I tried pressing (1) SHIFT key, (2) Up arrow key, (3) Command key, and the "G" key simaltaneously.That didn't work. I also tried without the SHIFT key. That didn't work, either, so I got to the Library page by pressing the Option key as I pressed GO from (FINDER) in the menu bar. That produced  a dropdown menu that contained LIBRARY. After that, I found at least 50 Preference-Files files and two or three Preference-Document files and one Preference Copy. I'm thinking that these are not the Library-Preference files you're talking about, so please clarify how you get the correct ones.

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UPDATE: I still don't understand how I'm supposed to read "SHIFT, UP ARROW, COMMAND, "G".

but that's no longer important. I found "com.apple.assistant.plist" and I trashed it and emptied the trash. In fact, I followed all of your steps to the letter. Unfortunately, the results were the same, Enhanced Dictation started to download but soon stopped. This is the same result I have experienced again and again WITH ONE EXCEPTION: The first time I tried to download Enhanced Dictation, it was working as expected, and you could follow the MBs ticking off. It got as far as 400 or so out of the complete file size of 785 MB and then it stopped. I'm not absolutely sure, but it could be that my computer was disconnected at that time. In any event, since that first atttempt, I have only seen short term  "shadow" downloads. In other words, it was only in my first attempt that I could actually watch the MB numbers ticking off. I'm actually optimistic. Because my first attempt almost made it, I know that it can be done. I just have to find a way to improve upon that partial but tantalizing success.

HELP

Ok, so I get someone who has a lot more knowledge than I to have a look & com.apple.assistant.plist is not to be found anywhere on my Macbook air. And I am still unable to download English Australian.

Please help

While trashing preferences helps in many cases this time it didn't work for me. I followed exactly the instructions but the problem stayed. I have exactly that "Dictation languages aren't available for download ..." problem on all the machines in my home network (1 MBA, 2 iMacs and 2 Mac minis, all migrated to Mavericks) so that I believe that there is something wrong in principle, maybe linked to OS migrations where I never installed the machines from scratch or due to specific language configurations.

I don't see any signs that a download starts so that the problem is probably local to the machine configuration. Sorry that I don't have any good advice how to resolve this problem but I would like to invite the community to contribute their additional experiences and/or ideas.

@mktoh Are you using one of oyur Macs as an update server for the others in your network to save from downloading the same update over and over for each machine?

If so, I ma have a solution for you. I found I was not be able to install the dictation languages becuase the client machines were trying to download from my own server (which doesn't have the files) and not the apple servers (which do have the file).

Switch your machines back to the default action of pulling app updates from apple, and the dication language files should download properly.

lionel289

Brilliant! One of the Mac minis acts as software update server and your suggestion solved my problem. Thank you very much!

Well, I don't understand what he said, but maybe it doesn't apply to me, anyway, since I only have one computer. I'm  hoping that the new router I will soon be getting will make a difference.

I still have no success & only the one Macbook air, nothing extra.

I was so happy to have a dictate program, and now just incredibly unhappy I ever heard about it. Can anyone please help with this problem.

The new router didn't help. I still can't download Enhanced Dictation.

I had the issue.  It turned out my office blocked the connection.  When I disconnected from the office network and tried to download again via a much less stringent connection, it downloaded just fine.  Not sure if that's anyone's issue, but I wanted to put it out there in case you were having the same issue.

THANKS SO MUCH, IT WORKED EXACTLY LIKE YOU HAD SAID.

Sorry, Benb2012, don't get the difference between the sugesstion of Crownofthorns17 and bassham. Isn't it exactly the same?
By the way, I don't agree with your critics to bassham. I agree to a scepticism of deleting files you don't know (but you are asuming also the others don't know it either) but not with the value you give to bassham due to his participation in this forums. There a people who knows a lot but are to lazy to write it, or just test around and share it (I guess that is his case), anyway, as community we build our knowledge out of sharing, and it is the responsability of everyone to see what he follows and risks he takes. Thatfore, I guess it is bettter to encourage sharing experiences, and wouldn't criticize somebody due to his participation-statistics. Nevertheles, I would agree to be carefull with preferences - but it seems that many proposed it and it worked for you, didn't it? Fine

By the way, a little of topic but in this thread people with different problems have posted, so here my contribution (i don't write often, etc) result of reading here, making my conclusions and trial and error:

Resetting the cache of the language rec (deleting com.apple.SpeechRecognitionCore in caches of user library) helped me to reactivate a language where the mic reacted, but no transcription took place.

So, agreeing in the intention to avoid deleting stuff we dont know whatfore it is, I recomend to the readers, in case Speech rec gets buggy, first to reset caches before deleting prefs and downloading. And as posted by others: check interferences with other progs and internal network.

To all with problems of downloads not working if they were interrupted: check here in the forums how to delete unfinished downloads with AppStore, same solution applies to different issues, like updates, installers, new programms, etc. 

Enhanced dictation does not work with macmini. requires external headphones in my experience.Bought headphones (logitech) but they do not show as an installed choice to select.

I had the same problem as the original poster: I had an interrupted download of the Enhanced Dictation (ED) engine, and no matter what I tried I wasn't able to enable Enhanced Dictation feature for my primary language.

I followed all of the various technical advice in this forum and others, but no matter what I tried I had the same symptoms:

- enabling ED would cause a dialog box to appear, indicating that the ED dictionary was being downloaded

- the "download" would finish almost instantly, implying that my Mac was caching the previous incomplete download

- because the download was incomplete, the ED function wasn't able to function

If I tried to enable ED for a different language, then ED would work..but I couldn't find a way to make the Mac "start over" and download ED from scratch and replace its buggy previous download.

But I found a way to erase the cached download. After I deleted this bad cached copy, and followed all previous advice, the ED downloaded from scratch and is working perfectly now.

ED caches are stored in a random folder on your Mac, so I can't tell you exactly what folder you need to explore.  But here's what the files were on MY machine, so you can follow along (your folder names will likely be different)

WARNING: You will be manipulating files with ultimate (root) privileges. If you're not familiar with these commands or aren't comfortable performing them, do not follow these steps. There's a small chance that a slip-up or typo could damage the contents of your hard disk with no chance for "undo".

1. Open the Terminal application
2. cd /private/var/folders
3. sudo su -
   • <Enter your adminstrative password>
4. find . -name \*SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguage\*
   • ./29/00/031-1948/2sxrue641d8yah303ulp3p6etc4xdjc9ez/SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguag e_en_GB.pkg
   • ./29/00/031-1948/2sxrue641d8yah303ulp3p6etc4xdjc9ez/SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguag e_en_GB.pkg.resumeData
   • ./55/13/031-1940/chpuvr2ntbhisy2em872b4j6hsk71croja/SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguag e_en_US.pkg
   • ./55/13/031-1940/chpuvr2ntbhisy2em872b4j6hsk71croja/SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguag e_en_US.pkg.resumeData
5. cd /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000s0000068/C/com.apple.SoftwareUpdat e/swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/55/13/031-1940/chpuvr2ntbhisy2em872b4j6hsk71 croja
6. pwd
   • /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000s0000068/C/com.apple.SoftwareUpdat e/swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/55/13/031-1940/chpuvr2ntbhisy2em872b4j6hsk71 croja
7. rm SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguage_en_US.pkg
8. rm SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguage_en_US.pkg.resumeData
   
9. Quit the Terminal application
   
10. Go to System Preferences -> Dictation & Speech ->
    
    1. Disable ED if it's enabled
       
    2. Disable Dictation completely if it's enabled
       
11. Now, reboot your computer just to be sure everything's clean and ready to start the download fresh
    
12. Go to System Preferences -> Dictation & Speech ->
    1. Enable Dictation
    2. Enable Enhanced Dictation
13. You should see the download happening from the beginning now..it's a large file that should take a while to download and install.

For additional details, here's the XML file that describes the partially-downloaded file. Clearly there's something broken with Apple's error recovery in this process:

more /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000s0000068/C/com.apple.SoftwareUpdat e/swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/55/13/031-1940/chpuvr2ntbhisy2em872b4j6hsk71 croja/

SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguage_en_US.pkg.resumeData

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd
">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>

<key>NSURLDownloadBytesReceived</key>

<integer>743387125</integer>

<key>NSURLDownloadEntityTag</key>

<string>"24750174-4eb14a0646f2c"</string>

<key>NSURLDownloadServerModificationDate</key>

<string>Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:15:29 GMT</key>

<key>NSURLDownloadURL</key>

<string>http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/55/13/031-1940/chpuvr2ntbhisy2em872b4j6 hsk71croja/SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguage_en_US.pkg</string>

</dict>

</plist>

Trying to install dictation with English (united Kingdom)

I have tried all these fixes trying but still keep getting the message that an unexpected error occured. Any further advice would be appreciated.