Fixing the ‘Scratch That’ and ‘Correct That’ bug in Dragon and High Sierra

SUMMARY: Dragon Version 6 is problematic with High Sierra. This article describes somewhat of a fix – ‘reset’ the Dragon preferences and dictate into Text Edit.

Background

In this article I wrote about the problems I encountered with Dragon when I upgraded to High Sierra. The ‘scratch that’ and ‘correct that’ commands were not working. This problem has also been reported here at Apple support and here at Mac Update but no solutions have been provided. I have been in contact with Nuance and they provided this solution. Nuance have not made this public but if you contact Nuance directly through their customer support and raise the issue with them they will be able to talk you through this.

The Nuance Solution

Here are the instructions I received from Nuance on how to do this:

1. Quit the Dragon program.
2. Click on Finder choose Go to Folder from the Go menu.
3. Enter the following text in the Go to Folder text box:
~/Library/Preferences/ and then click Go.
4. Arrange files and folders in alphabetical order.
5. Move all files that begin with â€œcom.dragon.dictateâ€ to the Trash.
6. Empty the trash.
Run First Aid on your Mac Internal hard drive.
1. Click on Finder.
2. Click on Go on the top menu bar.
3. Choose Utilities > click on Disk Utility.
4. Highlight internal hard drive and then click on First Aid on the top left corner.
5. Reboot your Mac computer and then try to do the task again.

The Results

After doing the steps above there was some improvement.

I am now able to dictate into TextEdit, Mail and TextWrangler and use the ‘Scratch That’ and “Correct That’ commands.

The bug still exists in Apple Pages. The ‘Scratch That’ and ‘Correct That’ commands do not work properly in Apple Pages. Also selecting a word and changing it does not work in Apple Pages either.

What this means is that I now dictate into TextEdit and then copy the final document and paste it into Apple Pages to format it. Not a great solution but it does work.

Posted

February 1, 2018

dragon, speech recognition

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10 responses to “Fixing the ‘Scratch That’ and ‘Correct That’ bug in Dragon and High Sierra”

Bryan Leyland
February 6, 2018
I have just tried it and doesn’t work. I do wish that Dragon would do something about it.
Reply
1. Wayne
  February 6, 2018
  I have 10.13.1 and Dragon 6.0.8, what do you have?
  Reply
Nic
February 17, 2018
Hi,
Tried the tip, but didn’t work for me. OS 10.13.3 Dictate 6.0.8.
Thank you for offering a solution though.
All the best
Nic
Reply
1. Wayne
  February 18, 2018
  Some other things to try:
  1. Use a new profile.
  2. Completely delete the old version of Dragon.
  See this post on how to do this: http://nuance.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6851/kw/uninstall
  Reply
Brian Riley
April 9, 2018
Has there been any resolution to this problem yet?
Reply
Steven C Hardesty
June 14, 2018
I went from Dragon for Mac 4 to Dragon for Mac 6. It was definitely a downgrade. I can’t use Dragon in Word 2016 now. I’ve contacted Nuance over and over and they have been of no help. They’ve told me there is a know version problem, without putting in right which version of which they are talking about. The only version of Dragon I have is 6.0.8. I guess I can try these things you are suggesting, but they don’t sound like fixes. Maybe I should try Pages and see if that’s any better.
I’m thinking there should be a class action law suit. No benefit to the individual user, but it might get Nuance to address the problem.
Reply
Dana W
July 5, 2018
I canâ€™t believe I fell for this crap piece of software again. Who are these jerk reviewers that claim Dragon is finally working? Every year I shell out for the upgrade, and every year, I canâ€™t even get past bull**** like this to even use the damn stuff. â€œScratch thatâ€ and â€œdelete thatâ€ â€“ fer crissake, that stuff worked 10 years ago, at least! Basic fricking commands. And for some reason, thereâ€™s not even a user forum at Nuance to share info and complaints among users, or else Iâ€™ve been blacklisted and canâ€™t get to it. Iâ€™m asking for my money back, for once. This is the most frustrating software company Iâ€™ve ever had the displeasure to deal with. Unbelievable.
Reply
1. Wayne
  July 4, 2018
  They shut down the forums – they were just full of people (rightly) complaining! It’s been almost 2 years since the last major update to Dragon – I hope they fix these problems soon. My guess is that it may be as much do to with Apple and their lack of co-operation with Nuance as it is with Nuance. There are lots of complaints from developers that Apple are hard to work with. Nuance would have fixed this if they could. It’s interesting that this problem only happens with Apple Pages. Also interesting that Dragon for the PC is such a smooth piece of software.
  Reply
Bill Albert
July 29, 2018
xI was able to get Dragon working with Open Office 4.14, but it doesn’t work perfectly at all. The scratch that function does seem to work fairly well. But just as I was cong having found ag myself from the solution. That’s exactly what happened! In other words, it will delete but is not happy when you ask to chose or edit. Still, it is better than nothing. The thing that amazes me, is that the bastards are still selling it as if it works! What is all about? Anyway, I hope this solution is good for someone. I too have no use of my hands and entirely depend on Dragon. I wish I didn’t have to. I am going to try to get someone to download the old system for the Mac and see if I can downgrade so it works. Oh, one more thing. The spelling function and command function this Open Office solution does not work unless you pick them out manually.
Reply
Jonathan
September 17, 2018
Well, at least your posts are doing something positive for me. I’ve tried Dragon off and on over the years. In reading through your posts, Nuance will at least not get my hard-earned money this time. I’ve learned, the hard way, to look for posts like this one.
Until they fix this, I’m not buying another one of their d*** products. Hopefully, they’ll start to get the message.
They are a disgrace.
Reply