can't download the Enhanced Dictation Engine

Hi there,

Thank you for your help. I didn't try that. I don't want to risk deleting a file when I have no idea what it does. I suggest others wait for a bit for now as well. I did look at:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5468660?answerId=23513414022#23513414022

This gentleman "Bassham" Pops up out of the blue. He has only one post about this topic, and a total of 4 posts in 5 years. None of them of a highly technical nature. Says that he has the same problem, and then magically responds to himself that he found the solution, and it happens to be deleting a very specific file.

No explanation what the file is, or what it does?! Just go there and delete it and see what happens? Really?

What if someone with 4 posts in 5 years said that the answer to forgetting your login password is deleting a single file ... oh it's just /etc/passwd. Don't worry it'll self generate if you delete it ... NOT!!!

I know it's a gross exaggeration and ~ is local files to one particular user; but, I hope you get my point. Deleting random unknown files, no matter how innocuous, will eventually bite you in the rear sooner or later.

People have had mixed results with this solution so far. That's too much variability. For myself, I will wait until we hear from Apple proper, or someone who can point out a whitepaper, or a legit apple support document that states the solution to this problem is ... "X." We all get 90 days of free tech support for Mavericks. I plan on calling tomorrow or Monday. I'll update the thread when I know more ...

My $0.02 ... we are all adults 🙂 please let us all know what happens.

Thanks.

Ok. a follow up. I was suspicious that the solution was deleting the .plist. Did a quick bit of experimentation:

Created a brand new test user account.

Created a New icloud account, icloud email ... all the usual user creation related things.

Verified there was no com.apple.assistant.plist file in /Library/Preferences/:

Then went and tried to enable enhanced dictation:

So now the plist file was created ... plus a few other related files:

I deleted the suggested file. Tried again ... FAIL!!! I deleted all assitant.plist files and tried to enable enhanced_dictation ... FAIL!!! verdict ... These files have nothing to do with the error.

Please repeat this experiment and see if you get a different result ...

APPLE SUPPORT:

DICTATION ENGINE IS BROKEN. WHERE IS THE BUG REPORT FORM?

Happy to say this is the final update,

I'm actually dictating this note using enhanced dictation. I have to say I do love Mavericks so far, and the additions, Updates, and enhancements are fabulous.

The suggestion from Crownofthorns17 works. All credit goes to him.

This is his post quoted below:

Crownofthorns17

Re: can't download the Enhanced Dictation Engine

Oct 25, 2013 9:02 PM ( in response to Evan_Beezy)

Did you follow each of the instructions above?

1. Press these keys simultaneously: (shift ⇧+command⌘+G)

2. In the dialog box that appears after step 1, copy and paste the following :

~/Library/Preferences

3. Hit return/enter

4. You will be presented with a ton of files, but you should be able to find the

com.apple.assistant.plist

5. Move it to the Trash and Empty your Trash

6. Open Dictation & Speech preference panel and turn off dictation

7. Restart your computer

8. Open Dictation & Speech preference panel, turn on dictation

9. Select Enhanced Dictation

10. Download should begin and install correctly

I hope this helps.

Step number 7 was critically important. Without that step the instructions do not work. I guess the instructions have to be followed religiously: 😝

Here is proof that the instructions work:

Downloading:

Downloading progress:

Finally installing:

Thank you all and good night:-)

marcobg wrote:

I can use enhanced dictation but i cant download italian voice 😟 it says voices are not available

Sorry I hope it comes soon for you.

I still wish there was a bug-report form available. My general experience has been that usually non-english enhancements trail english enhancements by a bit.

This is a temporary thing. Business sense dictates that soon it will be Chinese, Hindi, English ... everone else. Just remember I said it first 🙂 LOL (with a bit of chagrin)

dnmich wrote:

I have this problem too, or at least a version of it. For several days my MacBook Air has been unable to download the enhanced dictation languages files. Every time I try, I get the same error message: "Dictation languages aren't available to download at this time. Try again later."

I did work through the suggestions above (in this thread) from Crownofthorns17, but they did not fix my problem. I do have a working internet connection; I have no troubles downloading anything else. This is my only difficulty. Mavericks is, otherwise, working fine.

Does anybody else have suggestions that might address the issue?

Is your Mac setup with English (American) as the default language? If the answer is no; then I think that's why you're having this problem. You're getting a different error. It's not saying "Download Failed" It's saying your language is not available. I'm only making a (hopefully educated) guess.