Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox default spellchecker dictionary changed by Gmail

  • 16 tontu
  • 4 am na jafe-jafe bii
  • 2 views
  • i mujjee tontu mooy brajawill

more options

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:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439598

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: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439598

All Replies (16)

more options

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?

more options

Current Firefox versions automatically switch the dictionary based upon the "lang" meta tag.

<html class="no-js" lang="en-US" dir="ltr">
more options

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

more options

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

more options

If this problem is only on gmail pages, check the site settings.

more options

The display language is set to English; I assume that would tell Gmail to assume I'm composing in English as well.

more options

Never underestimate the stupidity of programers. Now go to the web site and check the options.

more 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.

more options

If this happens only with Gmail locations, have you contacted their support people?

more options

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 options

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

more options

See what happens when you disable one of them.

more options

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.

more options

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.

more options

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

more options

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 ;)

brajawill moo ko soppali ci