System Preferences -> Dictation & Speech -> Dictation tab
All the settings are greyed out:
On/Off, Shortcut, Language, About Dictation and Privacy...
...so I can't enable dictation.
Anyone else have this?
Input is set to Internal microphone -- the mic is working fine as the icon indicates the input level changing when there's noise.
Odd...
OK I fixed it.
I had to:
1) create a new temporary admin account.
2) reboot, login as new temp admin account.
3) change my normal admin account to non-admin account.
4) disable parental controls on my now non-admin account.
5) change my normal account back to an admin account.
6) reboot, login as normal admin account.
7) delete temporary admin account.
8) ENABLE DICTATION - Yay - It worked!
The easiest way to enable dicatation if it is greyed out like it was for me at first, is go to system prefferences, log in to parental controls, click on an account, go to "other," and then uncheck the box that says, "Disable use of dication." No rebooting necessary. The other way works too but I thought there had to be an easier way to fix this.
This isn't going to be something that a genius will be able to influence as its a bug or a oversight in the programming. Apple either need to change the way managed accounts disable dictation by default or add the ability to enable or disable/enable dictation from a payload in profilemanager. I would suggest everyone experiencing the issue submit at bug report at http://apple.com/feedback.
Someone in the meantime may be clever enough to workout the location of the plist disabling dictation and then it would allow us to create a custom payload for profile manger that overrides the default settings as a temporary fix
In another topic, I started (sorry I missed this one) I can conclude it is indeed an issue with user profiles once I removed all user profiles and went to just device profiles the problem resolved itself.
Here is my topic so you can see it in context.
When you navigate to the dictation settings is there a padlock icon in the bottom left, if so does it appear locked? If so click it and it'll ask for your admin password, enter it and then it should unlock access to those options.
Just to be clear, you are connected to the internet correct? I believe you need to be connected to use dictation, and it will likely be greyed out if you don't have a currently usable internet connection. Sorry if this is redundant, but it's usually the little things.
I think it's related to Profile Management -- or actually 'Parental Controls' -- as I see an option in there to disable Dictation (disabled by default for new Parental Control accounts).
Since my account is an Adminstrator account, by design I can't have Parental Control enabled on it, but the Users preferance pane would suggest it is 'Managed'.
This is understandable to some degree, as my account WAS managed from Lion server when I upgraded to Mountain Lion. Maybe that's why it applied default parental control to my admin account during the upgrade!! Holy moly..
I've since removed the management profiles deployed via OS X server but to no avail. My account is still 'Managed', Shows 'Enable Parental Controls' as ticked. If i try to untick it it says 'You cannot enable parental controls on for an administator account'... lol.
BUG!
PaullieG,
Thanks so much for this it was driving me wild!
As you, I had profiles managing the account from Lion Server.
Followed your instructions and all is working.
I will now install trust profiles and MDM from ML Server and see if that causes things to revert.
Many thanks,
Stu
I too was having this issue and you pointed me to the right direction. Thanks.
My problem was easier to fix, with less steps involved.
I always operate my iMac from a non-admin account. All I had to do was:
1) Open System Preferences and locate Parental Controls
2) After unlocking padlock, I selected the account I was in.
3) Click on the 'other' tab, and unselect "Disable use of Dictation"
cheers,
tony
Glad this info could be of use to others. I've just got a quick followup regarding the root-cause.
The problem returned as soon as I added my Macbook back as a managed device into a Mountain Lion Server Profile Manager -- deployed the payloads and rebooted.. (Reboot is important here for those using management profiles).
To be clear, I do not deploy the 'Parental Control' payload, it's left completely disabled, but despite this the Macbook still enabled Parental Controls for my admin account.
I'm sure Apple will fix this in an upcoming update - let's see.. 🙂
Also, and like I previously mentioned, the default in Parental Controls is to disable Dictation. This seems an odd choice to me seeing as all other defaults are not restrictive in nature. Maybe this is not intentional too.
Apple should also update Parental Control preferences in Profile Manager. Currently there is no way to override Dictation settings (and also some new Game Centre related defaults).
Phew -- Glad I got that off my chest. Really enjoying Mountain Lion otherwise. A nice update really polishing Lion.
Paul
Yes i'm expericing this too, I was hoping it would be fixed in this update 10.8.1 today but it's not!
Out of interest I noticed in profile manager theres the ability to add a "custom settings" payload, can anyone one figure out a custom setting that might override the dictation being disabled by default rather than having to disable the account as an admin from another user then disable the parental controls everytime you want to use the dictation? There's quite a few speech related preference files in the ~library but I can't work out which one manages what.
➕ 10.8.1 update resolved the 'enabling parental controls using default settings' for managed devices issue for me.
➖ 10.8.1 did not enhance Profile Manager Parental Controls with Dictation or Game Center options.
ℹ 10.8.1 did not change the default Parental Control options -- Disabled dictation is still the default. I guess that is intended then.
I'd just like to chime in and confirm that I'm experiencing the same problem under 10.8.1 - I can use an Admin account to remove Parental Controls (and therefore reenable Dictiation) - but as soon as I re-install the certificates/profiles required for my work Wi-Fi, parental controls are once again enabled and Dictation is enabled.
Easily tested and repeatable - and very annoying.
Quick update - The problem seems to be when using a combination of Administrator Account and a managed Profile.
If I demote my Admin account to a standard user, I can use the Parental controls to modify the dictation settings.
The problem is, an Admin account can't be Parental settings controlled, so you lose access to this control panel.
Are there any Terminal level hacks that might get around this, I wonder?
Hi twist16 and Wet Jimmy -- Odd that you still have the issue and I don't.
FYI - I have a Device Profile containing the payloads listed below. I had previously removed my MacBook from it due the original issues. I didn't need to change anything in it -- I just redeployed it after updating to 10.8.1 using Mac App store standard OS upgrade process.
VPN Service
Wi-Fi Network (x2)
Mobile Account and Home Sync Settings
Passcode Policy
Printer Settings
Directory Binding Account
Loginwindow Preferences
Can't enable Dictation (Greyed out)
