Firefox default spellchecker dictionary changed by Gmail
Sometime during the past year, Firefox has stopped retaining US English as my default spellchecker dictionary. I believe Gmail is somehow the culprit, though I cannot suggest how. I have my default spellchecker dictionary set to US English (en-US).
In some tests I did just now: Launch Firefox, go to edit environment in Wikipedia, spellchecker dictionary is set to US English, about:config spellchecker.dictionary setting concurs. Restart FF, go to Gmail > compose, dictionary defaults to the French one I have installed (fr-xx-classique+reforme1990)*, about:config spellchecker.dictionary setting concurs. Open second tab, go to WP edit session, dictionary is set to en-US, though about:config setting still set to French.
I tried the above troubleshooting steps in a couple different sequences and did not get consistent results. At first, once I had switched to en-US in the Gmail compose environment (by right-clicking on an underlined string), that setting seemed to take for the remainder of the browser session across multiple tabs. I restarted FF and it still seemed to be holding, even in Gmail. Then, after restarting the computer and starting a Gmail compose session, the dictionary was back to French.
On Bugzilla@Mozilla, I see only one potentially related issue when I search on "default spellchecker": https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1061650
Anyone else reporting such behavior? Anyone have any ideas? --Eric
current system: FF 34.0.5 on Windows 7 sp1
- Note: There is an open, longtime Red Hat Bugzilla bug that looks to be reporting possibly related behavior on Linux systems:
All Replies (16)
Type about:preferences#content<enter> in the address bar. To the far right of Languages, press Choose and check the settings.
Type about:config<enter> in the address bar. There is a search box at the top of the page. Type intl.accept_languages What is the value?
Current Firefox versions automatically switch the dictionary based upon the "lang" meta tag.
<html class="no-js" lang="en-US" dir="ltr">
Fred: In preferences#content, the language is set to en-us; intl.accept_languages is set to en-US, en.
co-rel: I don't find the string "lang" in the source code of my Gmail inbox page, if that helps.
Thanks to you both for replying. --Eric
Update: I'm now thinking it's Gmail that is the culprit here. It seems that every new Gmail session starts off with French as the spell-check language. Anyone know if that would tend to be an issue with FF or with Gmail? --Eric
If this problem is only on gmail pages, check the site settings.
The display language is set to English; I assume that would tell Gmail to assume I'm composing in English as well.
Never underestimate the stupidity of programers. Now go to the web site and check the options.
Sorry, I should have been more specific. In Gmail's account settings, there is a drop-down menu to choose the display language. Mine is set to English. As I mentioned above in my reply to cor-el, there is no "lang" tag in the source code of the Gmail account page, so I can't see any evidence there of a language being set in the html.
If this happens only with Gmail locations, have you contacted their support people?
I posted on the help forum. No sign yet of it having got Google staff's attention: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!mydiscussions/gmail/IjaWJMDRkEQ
More info: I have dictionaries for English, German, and French installed. I just noticed something funny in the add-ons listing views: While the German dictionary is listed under the Dictionaries category, the French one is under Extensions. Any ideas? See screenshots attached. Thanks. --Eric
See what happens when you disable one of them.
At the suggestion of someone in the Gmail forum, I uninstalled the French extension one and reinstalled it in a way that made it go into the Dictionaries category. Now I'm waiting to see what happens. Thanks.
Well, I guess the above change did not address the problem. I just went to compose an e-mail, and the spell-check was set to French.
Hello all- Just an FYI/update: I am now encountering the same problem on a different Windows machine: Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit sp1 Firefox 35.0 --Eric
This is not a Gmail thing. This is certainly a Firefox problem. I have this same problem, and it happens not just with Google products.
Many people have this problem it seems, and we're all left to the help forums which are not offering the right solution. Of course the forums are helpful, but this problem still persists.
Contact Mozilla directly? https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback
Not sure if it helps in solving the problem...but maybe ;)
Modified by brajawill