Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

xt28 · 2010-12-10 12:04:20

Upgrading Thunderbird (Lanikai) from 3.1.6-1 to 3.1.7-1 failed at first due to files under /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.1/dictionaries. These files belonged to thunderbird-spell-de-de. Removing that package allowed the Thunderbird upgrade to succeed. The thunderbird-spell-de-de package is no longer available from the repositories.

The Thunderbird upgrade replaced the directory /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.1/dictionaries with a symbolic link to /usr/share/myspell. However, /usr/share/myspell does not exist. In particular, the hunspell package, on which thunderbird depends, does not install /usr/share/myspell.

Because of this (I suspect), spell-checking no longer works in Thunderbird.

How do I make it work again? Is this a bug or a misconfiguration on my part?

wonder · 2010-12-10 12:06:42

install hunspell-de-de from aur

Last edited by wonder (2010-12-10 12:07:00)

xt28 · 2010-12-10 13:01:31

Thanks, wonder.

I must be missing something, though. Running "hunspell -D" shows /usr/share/myspell/de_DE under available dictionaries. (And /usr/share/myspell/en_US, as well, since I also installed hunspell-en-us from AUR.)

But Thunderbird doesn't seem to be able to use them. The "Spell" button is disabled. Curiously, the Preferences dialog shows both languages under the "Spelling" tab under "Composition". That might be a leftover from before, though.

Incidentally, Firefox doesn't seem to be able to use the hunspell dictionaries, either.

wonder · 2010-12-10 13:16:27

the only way i can make spell button disabled in thunderbird is when i have the email field selected but once i click on the composing window it became available.

on firefox just right click on any text already and you can enable/disable check spelling and a list with available dictionaries

xt28 · 2010-12-10 13:25:19

Oops. Looks like that was my mistake. Spell-checking is indeed disabled for email addresses. It now works as expected, though.

So I consider this solved.

xt28 · 2010-12-10 13:28:28

Also, the reason Firefox spell-checking wasn't working was that I hadn't restarted Firefox after installing the hunspell dictionaries. So, all is good now.

(I'll submit a vote for these dictionaries to be included in the repos.)

Thanks, wonder.

GerBra · 2010-12-10 14:47:13

Hmm, we have a similar problem in german forum.

From the user info about old package:
# pacman -Q thunderbird
thunderbird 3.1.6-1
# pacman -Ql thunderbird | grep dict
thunderbird /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.1/dictionaries/
thunderbird /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.1/dictionaries/en-US.aff

So the upgrade to current version will fail, cause the filled dictionaries directory could not be replaced by a symlink during the upgrade process. IMHO this is the reason for the problem (myself don't use thunderbird...)

wonder · 2010-12-10 14:51:01

@GerBra not really. is because there is something else in /usr/lib/thunderbird-3.1/dictionaries.

pacman -Qs thundebird

the solution is to remove thunderbird-spell-foo and install hunspell-foo

GerBra · 2010-12-10 14:59:08

You're right, wonder. have checked it with installing old thunderbird package and then do a upgrade. Works. So the reason are the foreign, old dictionaries instaled by the users....

wonder · 2010-12-10 15:09:17

GerBra wrote:

You're right, wonder. have checked it with installing old thunderbird package and then do a upgrade. Works. So the reason are the foreign, old dictionaries instaled by the users....

indeed and i didn't had a clean way for this to be implemented. we don't have any hunspell-foo in the repos to replace the old tb-spell-foo

graysky · 2010-12-10 15:37:01

Odd, with this update you need to get yer own dictionary. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunde … age-tools/

berbae · 2010-12-10 17:44:18

graysky wrote:

Odd, with this update you need to get yer own dictionary.

No you don't need to install dictionaries from the Mozilla link (in fact it can work like that, but it is not a necessity).
If the hunspell package is installed, you need only to install some hunspell-xx packages from AUR to regain the spell-checking functionality.
It is because of the --enable-system-hunspell option of the mozconfig file of the package.

On my machine I had dictionaries extensions from Mozilla installed for Firefox/Namoroka, but I uninstalled them after the change in the Thunderbird package (I didn't know the --enable-system-hunspell option of the xulrunner package), and I still have the spell-checking functionality in Firefox.

After I installed hunspell-en-us and hunspell-fr from AUR for the Thunderbird change.

In fact you need at least one language, because the default en-us is no longer included in the thunderbird package.

xt28 · 2010-12-10 17:52:11

graysky, I guess wonder's solution (installing hunspell-[language] from AUR) would be preferable, as you only need to install the dictionary once for all users and it works for Thunderbird, Firefox, and OpenOffice.org.
Edit: what berbae said (cross-post).

wonder, maybe the cleanest solution would be to get the hunspell-* packages into [community] and make them a dependency or optional dependency for thunderbird-[lang], firefox-i18n, openoffice-[lang] etc.

Last edited by xt28 (2010-12-10 17:54:32)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-12-10 12:04:20

Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#2 2010-12-10 12:06:42

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#3 2010-12-10 13:01:31

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#4 2010-12-10 13:16:27

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#5 2010-12-10 13:25:19

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#6 2010-12-10 13:28:28

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#7 2010-12-10 14:47:13

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#8 2010-12-10 14:51:01

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#9 2010-12-10 14:59:08

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#10 2010-12-10 15:09:17

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#11 2010-12-10 15:37:01

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#12 2010-12-10 17:44:18

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

#13 2010-12-10 17:52:11

Re: Latest Thunderbird (3.1.7-1) upgrade breaks spell-checking

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