Q: Why has Dictation stopped working?

You haven't removed Kaspersky.

The uninstaller could not find anything of Kaspersky to remove.

Then, like Kaspersky itself, it's useless.

Back up all data before proceeding.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

/Library/Extensions

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

          Services ▹ Open

from the contextual menu.* A folder should open. Inside are items named "klif.kext" and "klnke.kext". Move them to the Trash. You may be prompted for your administrator login password. Restart the computer and empty the Trash.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

          Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

And is Dictation working?

Please repeat the test you ran earlier and post the output. I'd like to see what has changed.

A

Some of your user files (not system files) have incorrect permissions. This procedure will reset their ownership, permissions, and access controls to the default. If you've intentionally set special values for those attributes, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. Do so only after verifying that those settings didn't cause the problem. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it, but you do need to follow the instructions below.

Back up all data before proceeding.

Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select

          Utilities ▹ Terminal

from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open. In that window, type this:

resetp

Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:

resetpassword

Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.

Select

           ▹ Restart

from the menu bar.

B

Back up all data.

Run the following command in the same way as before. It moves to the Trash "semaphore" files that have not been cleaned up by the system and may be interfering with normal operation. The files are empty; they contain no data. There will be no output this time.

find L*/{Con*/*/Data/L*/,}Pref* -type f -size 0c -name *.plist.??????? -exec mv {} .Trash/ \; 2>&-

Log out or restart the computer and empty the Trash.

C

Get rid of the "memory management" apps in your login items. Such software is at best useless. The same is true of "TechTool."

In Recovery mode, Utilities did not include Terminal as an option.

It's in the Utilities menu in the menu bar, as I wrote eariler.

I used that to reset Directory Permissions and ACLs.

Doing that would have no effect, which is why I didn't suggest it.

This story is not making sense, and when that happens, I've found that the underlying cause is often bad sectors on the startup drive. Sometimes such a problem can be solved, at least temporarily, by erasing the startup volume and restoring from a backup.

Back up all data to at least two different storage devices, if you haven't already done so. One backup is not enough to be safe. The backups can be made with Time Machine or with Disk Utility. Preferably both.

Erase and install OS X. This operation will destroy all data on the startup volume, so you had be better be sure of the backups. If you upgraded from an older version of OS X, you'll need the Apple ID and password that you used, so make a note of those before you begin.

When you restart, you'll be prompted to go through the initial setup process in Setup Assistant. That’s when you transfer the data from a backup.