can't download the Enhanced Dictation Engine

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.

I tried all these fixes, but nothing worked. Then I realized that my computer uses an internal software update server, rather than Apple's. I am an admin on my machine, so I changed it back to the default Apple server and the dictation library downloaded immediately. Not everyone has the option of disabling their company update server, so if you don't, you might want to call the person responsible for it and ask them to add the enhanced dictation libraries to it.

Hi Contantj can you provide instructions on how I would find and make those changes to the update server? Otherwise I don't know where to begin.

Thanks

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4069

Hi Contantj,

I followed the link and tried to reset the update server to apple, it is my personal computer and I tried this from my home internet so no network, using terminal and the code:

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL

gave me message

Last login: Tue Feb 4 11:10:27 on ttys000

MY-MacBook-Pro:~ MY$ sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL

Password:

2014-02-04 12:15:41.495 defaults[2980:507]

Domain (/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate) not found.

Defaults have not been changed.

MY-MacBook-Pro:~ MY$

I can locate /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate manually in the home library and it is present. I am about to give up on this, anyone know where this can be downloaded without having to use the automated mac download?

Thank you

I posted the full URL in my jan 14 post. Take a look there for the file path to the local cache and for the full URL.

Hi,

I have used the search, it would not find any full URL so I did a search for the com.apple.softwareUpdate instead

MY-MacBook-Pro:~ MY$ cd /private/var/folders

MY-MacBook-Pro:folders MY$ sudo su -

MY-MacBook-Pro:~ root# find . \*com.apple.softwareUpdate\*

NOTE: some pages or what appeared to be unrelated files found, with at the bottom

./Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.savedState

./Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.savedState/data.data

./Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.savedState/windows.plist

./Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.SoftwareUpdateLauncher.savedState

./Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.SoftwareUpdateLauncher.savedState/data.data

./Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.SoftwareUpdateLauncher.savedState/window_1.data

./Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.SoftwareUpdateLauncher.savedState/windows.plist

find: *com.apple.softwareUpdate*: No such file or directory

At this point I think I will say thanks for the help but its now getting to technical for me to continue, this would have been a nice feature to have but until apple makes it easier to install it is no use to me.

Thanks to those that provided advice.

Hi - here's the link the reply i posted last month, that had all the gory details on my investigation: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5480134?answerId=24507992022#24507992022

I discovered that the URL to download the enhanced recognition engine package was hosted here:

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

And the local file that used it, and was causing all my problems, was located in this somewhat-randomly named file/folder:

/private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000s0000068/C/com.apple.SoftwareUpdat e/swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/55/13/031-1940/chpuvr2ntbhisy2em872b4j6hsk7 1 croja/

SpeechRecognitionCoreLanguage_en_US.pkg.resumeData

My earlier posting has the instructions I used to force mavericks to re-download the full package and install it successfully. To cut to the chase, you might try manually downloading that pkg file, then launching it manually on your affected Mac to install it.

This is finally the solution that worked for me on both 2009 iMac and 15" MBP Retina. Good catch!

Hi, I'm italian too.. have you downloaded the italian voice and dictation.. for me is still impossible

You provided the solution! See my post 3/28/14

x509v3 has provided the solution!

In his post in the XML file is:

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

I clicked on the link, downloaded the file, double clicked the file, it installed, and Enhanced dictation works fine.

This is on a MacMini, so it works on this machine. I did have to unplug and plug in the microphone again for it to recognize the microphone so it shows up in the pulldown menu.

No, YOU provided the solution--I think. I have downloaded the file you indicated, and tomorrow I'll see if it works. I can't give x509v3 any credit because his instructions were just too ****** difficult to follow (I didn't even try). Even so, I think that Apple is at fault here. Judging from the reports I keep getting, this has to be one of the most screwed-up programs in existence. I once called Apple about it and found that they had assigned one person to handle calls about it, but (1) it soon became obvious that he didn't know enough to be of help, and (2) unlike almost all Apple advisors, he was extremely rude, so I never bothered calling him back.

I'm postponing "the moment of truth" until tomorrow because I have already invested too much time on this problem, and I want to rest up before making my final attempt.

I followed the instructions to a T, and I still get that error. Please help.