Q: Enhanced Dictation is not working

There's nothing personal in the report.

A

Some of your user files (not system files) have incorrect permissions or are locked. This procedure will unlock those files and 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.

Please back up all data before proceeding.

Step 1

If you have more than one user, and the one in question is not an administrator, then go to Step 2.

Enter the following command in the Terminal window in the same way as before (triple-click, copy, and paste):

sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nosappnd,noschg,nosunlnk,nouappnd,nouchg {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-

You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before you can run the command. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.

The command may take several minutes to run, depending on how many files you have. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear, then quit Terminal.

Step 2 (optional)

Take this step only if you have trouble with Step 1, if you prefer not to take it, or if it doesn't solve the problem.

Start up in Recovery mode. You may be prompted to select a language, then the OS X Utilities screen will appear.

If you use FileVault 2, select Disk Utility, then select the icon of the FileVault startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name.) It will be nested below another drive icon. Select Unlock from the File menu and enter your login password when prompted. Then quit Disk Utility to be returned to the main screen.

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

Please select the Login Items tab in the Users & Groups pane of System Preferences. Delete "SpeechSynthesisServer," then log out or restart the computer and test. If there's no change, also delete "Cinch" and test again.

D

The test results show other issues, probably not related to the original question.

You installed the "Spigot" ad-injection malware. Please take the steps below to disable it.

1. Triple-click the line below on this page to select it, then copy the text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:

~/Library/LaunchAgents

In the Finder, select

          Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You may not see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return. A folder named "LaunchAgents" will open.

2. Inside the folder you just opened, there may be one or more files with a name beginning as follows:

           com.spigot

Move all such items to the Trash.

Log out or restart the computer. Empty the Trash.

E

The symbol cache is very large. It stores data used in logs and crash reports, and it may have grown because it's corrupt. The cache is created automatically, and if deleted, it should be recreated when you restart the computer. Initially, at least, it will be a lot smaller.

I've seen one unverified report that a system became unbootable when the cache was deleted. That would have been due to a corrupt installation of OS X, but you should be prepared to reinstall if necessary. There is no reason to panic as long as you have good backups.

Back up all data before proceeding.

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

/System/Library/Caches/com.apple.coresymbolicationd

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

          Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)

from the contextual menu.* A folder should open with an item named "com.apple.coresymbolicationd" selected. Move the selected item 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, select the line below and copy it to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:

/System/Library/Caches

In the Finder, select

          Go ▹ Go to Folder...

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

A folder named "Caches" should open. Inside it is a subfolder named "com.apple.coresymbolicationd". Move that subfolder to the Trash, restart, and empty.

You didn't copy the whole line. Please review the instructions and try again.

You wrote in your original post that you had deleted a file. What file was that?

Did you take Steps B and C in my earlier comment?

Please back up all data.

Launch the Keychain Access application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

From the Category list in the lower left corner of the window, select

           All Items

Select the entire line below on this page and copy it to the Clipboard (command-C):

com.apple.assistant

Paste (command-V) into the search box in the upper right corner of the Keychain Access window. Delete any items that appear in the search results.

Disable and then reenable Enhanced Dictation. Test.

Please back up all data before proceeding.

Hold down the option key and select

          Go ▹ Library

from the Finder menu bar. From the Library folder, move the entire contents of the subfolder "Caches" (not the folder itself) to the Trash, then log out or restart the computer. Empty the Trash. Test.

If the problem is not solved, quit all running applications except the Finder. Open the Library folder again in the same way and move the entire contents of each of the following subfolders

          Application Support

          Containers

          Group Containers

          Preferences

(not the folders themselves) to a new folder on the Desktop (not to the Trash.) The "Group Containers" folder exists only in OS X 10.10 and later. Log out again.

The account will then be pretty much in a clean state. Test. If you can still reproduce the problem, then put all the folder contents back, replacing any that were created in their place, and log out.

To replace a preference file, you may have to move it to the Trash, then put the old one in its place. The change may take effect only after logging out.

If you can't reproduce the problem in the clean state, then start putting things back piecemeal, starting with items that seem unrelated to the issue. I can’t be more specific. After each group of items, log out and test. At some point, the problem may reappear, in which case you know that something in the last batch of files you restored is at fault. If it never reappears, the problem is solved.

You're not looking in the right folder. Please follow the instructions exactly. Don't do something else that you think will have the same effect.

You are a genius

Hardly. It took five days to solve the problem. But if it ever comes up again, maybe I will look like genius.