Fix a Nuance NaturallySpeaking 9 internal recognizer error

Just today I was asked to fix an issue with Nuance’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9, where the user profile refused to load properly. The application would launch but would not load the default user files, failing out with an “internal recognizer error”. Here’s how to fix the problem without losing too much information from your trained speech files:

1. Close all instances of NaturallySpeaking 9.
2. In Windows’ Run dialog box, type or paste the following path:
   "%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\Nuance\NatuallySpeaking9\Users"
3. Open the appropriate user folder for your profile.
4. In the user folder, rename the “current” folder to “corrupt“.
5. Then, rename the “backup” folder to “current“.
6. Relaunch NaturallySpeaking and your profile will be rebuilt. This may take some time to complete and will definitely thrash your CPU. (If the profile doesn’t load properly, try renaming the “backup2” folder to “current” for a second chance at redemption.)
7. If your profile loads successfully, click NaturallySpeaking > Manage Users > Advanced > Backup to build a backup copy of the restored profile. Again, this process is fairly CPU-intensive.
8. Get back to dictating! You can delete the “corrupt” directory as well now.

You may also want to copy your Users directory to a CD, DVD or flash memory stick occasionally in the event your backup copy is extremely out of date. There doesn’t appear to be a way to repair NaturallySpeaking 9 dictation files, so I suggest you maintain a separate backup copy around if you rely on dictation software for business.