Could not load dictionary[NOTED]

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
1

Installed Scrivener Beta 3 for Windows, read the Read Me notes, and launched the software.
Selected the “Fiction” template.
Received the error “Could not load dictionary” with the message:
"Error loading dictionary: No word lists can be found for the language "c
(the message cuts off after the “c” so I don’t know what else it says)

Note that the problem did not reappear on the second and subsequent launches of Scrivener.

System information:
Windows 7 64-bit with current patches
Intel Core i7 860 CPU
8GB RAM
G Data Antivirus 2011

2

I’m guessing, but is your default operating system language setup as something other than English?

If so, then this is a harmless error message you’ll get one time only as the dictionary can’t find the operating systems native language dictionary. This is an interim until we provide multiple language dictionaries as part of the install.

3

I found a solution to the issue and wanted to pass it along.

I had a 32-bit Windows 7 system on which Scrivener and its spelling feature worked perfectly. On my 64-bit system, it did not. I decided to do a bit of detective work to see if I could figure out why.

I noticed that on the 32-bit system, there is an HKLM\Software\Creative HQ registry key. This key did not exist on my 64-bit system, so I created it. I reset the HKCU\Software\Scrivener\ShowSpellCheckerLoadErrors key to true and launched Scrivener. I still received the error.

I then noticed that in my user profile there was a “LANG” environment variable set to the value “c”. I have no idea how it was created or why it was set to that value. I noticed that the 32-bit Windows 7 system did not have this value set, and spelling worked correctly. I deleted the LANG variable from my 64-bit system and Scrivener’s spelling began working for the first time.

For end users who might be experiencing this same combination of errors, the steps I followed to repair the problem were:

  1. Start, Control Panel, System, Advanced System Settings, Environment Variables.
  2. Locate a “LANG” environment variable in either the User variables or System variables sections of the window.
  3. Either make sure this is set correctly for your language or remove it.