Unable to choose dictionary in Thunderbird with only Mozilla's XPI spellcheckers

[ubu-for]

From the Mozilla webpage:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/dictionaries.html

I have downloaded their plugin XPI spellchecker:
http://downloads.mozdev.org/dictionaries/spell-de-DE.xpi

But even after installing this in Thunderbird, I can't choose the new dictionary in the preferences. Once I have installed a myspell package as instructed below, I am able to use the XPI dictionary also, but there is no reason I should not use the Mozilla-provided XPI dictionary without installing myspell.

Kindly enable the dictionary combobox immediately even when only an XPI dictionary has been installed.

This bug is still present in Thunderbird 2.0.0.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu1 on Gutsy. It was originally reported for a clean installation of Feisty.

[Alex Latchford (alex.latchford)]

Hello ubu-for,

Thank you for the bug report, I can confirm this report I have tested it with 1.5.0.10 in Feisty and cannot install any further dictionaries in any method I try. To me this consists of a fairly substantial loss of feature for a large portion of the users, thus marking it as a high priority.

I am going to leave it to Alexander to decide it further.

Thanks, Alex.

[Michael Opdenacker (michael-opdenacker)]

Hello,

Still not fixed on May 28, 2007 (all updates installed).

However, adding a new dictionary to Thunderbird is still very easy. Example:

sudo apt-get install myspell-pt-br

Cheers,

Michael.

[Robert Dzikowski (rdzikowski-gmail)]

I confirm this bug too. I use Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 on Kubuntu Feisty and after installing Polish dictionary from mozilla website, the dictionary wasn't listed on the dictionaries list. But installing myspell-pl resolved this problem, Michael thanks for the hint.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

anyone can confirm if this bug still exists in thunderbird 2.0 (gutsy)?

[Shriramana Sharma (jamadagni)]

On Thunderbird 2.0.0.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu1 on Gutsy, there is a related but somewhat different bug -- the "Download More Dictionaries" link in the Preferences window is totally dummy.

Apparently the XPI spellcheckers provided by Mozilla don't work for Thunderbird on Ubuntu, and the procedure to enable spellchecking is to install the myspell packages. If so, please totally remove the "Download More Dictionaries" text in the Preferences window -- why display a totally meaningless text?

Also please add this information on using myspell for spellchecking to the Thunderbird help on Ubuntu.

[Shriramana Sharma (jamadagni)]

Sorry but I seem to have misconstrued the content of this bug.

I confirm this bug on Thunderbird 2.0.0.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu1 on Gutsy RC. I should not have added information on the newer bug here -- I have made a separate report as bug 152215.

I also installed the XPI spellcheckers from Mozilla and they did not work. I also don't know how to remove them now that they are not needed due to my installing the MySpell packages.

[Alan Blundell (alan-blundell)]

Tested 13 Oct 07 on Gutsy, Thunderbird 2.0.0.6+nobinonly-0ubuntu1

Adding italian dictionary works faultlessly. Adding de-DE Gernan dictionary using the same process doesn't work. In Thunderbird after adding these 2, Tools>Add-Ons shows the italian but not the german dictionary.

Note to Shriramana Sharma - If the dictionary install works (based on the experience of italian), it can be removed / uninstalled readily from the Tools>Add-Ons menu item,

This bug would seem to be a problem with particular dictionary files, rather than with Thunderbird itself.

[Shriramana Sharma (jamadagni)]

Alan please check:

On my system, without installing the myspell-it package, if I only install to Tbird the XPI package, it still does not work -- please check.

Also please note that at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/dictionaries.html it says "After successfully installing the dictionary, you will not see it listed in the extension manager. It will appear in the list of available dictionaries in the spell checker dialog."

So is there really no way to remove a dictionary XPI once installed? That sucks. I tried searching my home and root folder for those aff and dic files using but to no avail.

[Shriramana Sharma (jamadagni)]

I just found one more thing -- I thought after installing the myspell packages, the Mozilla XPI packages somehow got activated. This was by seeing a separate entry for en_US and English / United States.

Now I find by looking at /usr/share/myspell/dicts that the myspell-en-us package has created en-US.[dic|aff] and the en_US symlinks to those files. And Tbird thinks they are two different spellcheckers since they have both the dic extension.

I am seriously wondering whether the XPI package got installed at all -- there is no related entry in my Tbird profile folder and the Tbird process does not have sufficient permissions to write to /usr/share/myspell or any folder under /usr at all. If the XPI package did not get installed, then the bug summary should be updated.

Could a NoScript installation in Fx affect Tbird and prevent the installation script from working?

[Ivan Williams (ivan-volkspares)]

I had exactly the same bug under Win XP. After lengthy search I found someone wrote an extension to fix this.
http://journal.mozdev.org/dictfix.html

[Mark Rogers (mark-web)]

I'm using SwiftDove 2.0.0.9 (on Gutsy AMD64), so this is just for information.

I'm also unable to install a dictionary (UK English). I tried the Italian one that Alan Blundell indicated worked, but it would not install for me.

I then tried "apt-get install myspell-en-gb" to discover that this was already installed. So that fix also doesn't work for me.

I do not have NoScript installed (at least not knowingly, and not reported in Fx Add-Ons).

[Nathan Handler (nhandler)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Ivan Williams (ivan-volkspares)]

Hi Nathan
Yes it is still an issue, however I believe this to be a Thunderbird
issue and not an Ubuntu problem. I cannot get the spellchecking to work
on WinXP either. For the record I use Thunderbird 2.0.0.16, and would
like to use English (GB) and Afrikaans dictionaries.
Regards
Ivan

Nathan Handler wrote:
> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make
> Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been
> any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue
> for you? Can you try with latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.
>
> ** Changed in: thunderbird (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Incomplete
>
>

[Shriramana Sharma (jamadagni)]

Incomplete bugs are liable to lapse. Whereas no further information is requested of the user community here by the developers. So resetting to NEW.

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The version of Ubuntu your reporting this issue on is in End of Life status. You can learn more about this at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases Please update Ubuntu, provide a detailed error report, and mark this bug as new. Thanks!

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

This still needs to be evaluated whether or not it's still an issue.

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Please don't change the bug status without a comment. As I said, this still needs to be evaluated by someone.

[Thomas Hotz (thotz-deactivatedaccount)]

Micah why do you set the bug to "New". You told me to test the bug. Before you set it to New you could test it if this is fixed, and if it is not fixed you set it to "Confirmed".

[Thomas Hotz (thotz-deactivatedaccount)]

I tried this but I can't confirm this bug. Can somebody test this and tell me if it is fixed please?

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

I reset the status because you didn't clarify that you tested it. It would be helpful to know which version of Thunderbird you actually tested and which Ubuntu release it was on.

[Thomas Hotz (thotz-deactivatedaccount)]

I tested it on the newest Thunderbird version 15 on Ubuntu Quantal with the dictonary above that was available. Here it works as expected.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for thunderbird (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]