Unable to open a user in Dragon NaturallySpeaking

Products: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Problem:

When opening a user in Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the selected user may not open or one of the following error messages may appear:

• "SDAPI Error"
• "Signal Processing Error"
• "The vocabulary you have chosen General - Large is incompatible or invalid"
• "Internal Recognizer Error"
• "E_Fail"

Restoring a good copy of the user's speech files will often resolve this issue.

Cause:

The user cannot load due to Speech File corruption. The Speech File corruption can be caused by a number of things, including aggressive anti-virus software settings, power surges occurring as Dragon saves the speech files or low memory resources.

Solution:

Restoring the user files often resolves this issue. There are two methods for restoring a user profile, automatically and manually. If an error still occurs after attempting both restore methods, please create new user files.

Please follow the steps below to automatically restore the user file for version 7, 8, 9 and 10: (without Roaming enabled)

1. Launch Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
2. From the Dragon Bar click "NaturallySpeaking > Manage Users".
3. Select the user file giving the error so it is highlighted.
4. Click the "Advanced" button.
5. Click on "Restore".
6. A user named "(USER-NAME) Restored1" will be created.
7. Close out of Manage Users.
8. From the Dragon Bar click "NaturallySpeaking > Open Users".
9. Select the restored user.
10. Click on "Open".
11. The User should now load successfully.

Please follow the steps below to manually restore the user file for versions 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: (without Roaming enabled)

1. Close Dragon NaturallySpeaking before continuing.
2. Navigate into the Users folder in the installation folder:
   • C:\ProgramData\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking9\Users (by default version 9.5 and version 10 running on Windows Vista)
   • C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking\Users\ (by default version 9 and 10)
   • C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ScanSoft\NaturallySpeaking\Users\ (by default version 8)
   • C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ScanSoft\NaturallySpeaking\Users\ (by default version 7.3)
   • C:\Program Files\Dragon\NaturallySpeaking\Users\ (by default version 7.0).
   • C:\Program Files\Dragon\NaturallySpeaking\Users\ (by default version 6).
   • C:\Program Files\Dragon Systems\NaturallySpeaking\Users\ (by default version 5)
   • C:\NatSpeak\Users\ (by default version 4).
3. In the "Users" folder, go into the Folder that corresponds to the user that is corrupt.
4. Rename the "current" folder to "old".
5. Make a copy in the same location of the folder named "backup".
6. Then rename the folder called "copy of backup" to "current".
7. Reboot the machine and start Dragon. The User should now load successfully.

When the Roaming Profile option is enabled:

1. Delete the local roaming user file. By default, the local roaming user file is located in the following directory (unless the local roaming user cache has been pointed to a different location in the Administrative settings:)
   
   C:\ProgramData\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking10\RoamingUsers\[display name]\[username] (version 10 running on Windows Vista).
   C:\ProgramData\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking9\RoamingUsers\[display name]\[username] (version 9.5 running on Windows Vista).
   C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking9\RoamingUsers\[display name]\[username] (version 9).
   C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking8\RoamingUsers\[username] (version 8).
   
   The [display name] is the name defined for the Master Roaming User location.
   The [username] is the name of the individual Roaming User.
   
   After deleting the local roaming user file, try opening the user again. Dragon NaturallySpeaking will download a new copy from the master roaming user location.



2. If deleting the local roaming user file does not help, then the master roaming user file is corrupted. Delete the local roaming user files from the PCs on which that user has been opened. Then restore the user file to the master roaming user location from a server backup. If a server backup is not available, a new user profile will need to be created.

Additional information

• Restoring the user files will also resolve the following error:

  An error occurred while saving or copying user files. The files "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking\Users\User name\current\aco.ini" could not be copied to "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking\Users\User name\tb\aco.ini".




• Also see Technote 3132 on preventing Speech File corruption.

TechNote Number: 3000 Published: 06/25/2002 Last Modified: 6/22/2009

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