I'm having a strange problem that recurs intermittently. When I dictate a number, such as "four" or "three", occasionally the cursor will move down or to the right, and Dragon will not insert "four" or "three" in the text. This doesn't happen all the time. I've noticed it mostly in DragonPad, but it is possible that it occurs in other applications.

I've checked the recognition history, and it always shows that I dictated a number, but indicates that it is recognizing a command.  I have checked my commands, using the Command Browser, and there seemingly are no commands or lists that have nothing but a number in the command name. Is there a way for me to identify which command is causing the problem?

Surprisingly, I had this problem in Dragon Preferred 13, when I was using Vocola to write custom commands. I always assumed it had something to do with my Vocola commands, but now it is recurring in Dragon 15 Professional Individual, And I am not using Vocola.

As always, suggestions are welcomed. I could try a new user, of course, and only gradually import groups of commands, but because the problem is intermittent I am skeptical that I would be able to be certain that the new user has fixed the problem.

The behaviour you are seeing is what I would expect had you previously activated the MouseGrid.

But if you have a bunch of old Vocola scripts, I would look there first.

Thanks for the suggestions.  I don't use the MouseGrid, and I'm not using Vocola with DPI 15.

I think I have found the offending Advanced Scripting command.  I have a command that moves the cursor left, right, up, or down up to 100 spaces. (I don't like having to say "move" or "go" – I just want to say, for example, "down 12".

The List that contained left, right, up, and down had a last line in it that was blank. It seems that perhaps DPI was interpreting that as meaning the null set, so that if I said "5", it interpreted it as a command, even though I thought my list only had left, right, up, and down. In other words, the List looked like this:

"left
right
up
down

"

when it needed to be:

"left
right
up
down"

Very surprising.

Spoke too soon. The problem just reoccurred.

I will delete this command and see if the problem continues. Very strange.

Interestingly, I can't seem to make the problem go away.

I rewrote the command as a DVC command, but the problem recurs. Seems there is some sort of bug where the program recognizes the blank line in the list as one of the entries for the variable.

I suppose if I got really fancy I could put some sort of If statement or Case statement in for all situations where the first variable is blank, it would type the spoken form of the second variable.

Very strange. I really don't remember having this in NaturallySpeaking before version 13.

Nuance isn't exactly famous for conducting extensive beta testing. We suspect that they are simply unaware that enabling auto-gain can increase Dragon mis-recognitions that may be interpreted as commands. Since we began using DPI 15, DPG 15 and DMPE 4, we have noted more accidental KnowBrainer misfires. We recently dealt with this problem by removing around 50% of our commands. For example you might say “ to write” and Dragon might interpret your dictation as as move 2 right; a Dragon command. We like auto-gain but this is 1 of the disadvantages. If this becomes too much of an issue for you, consider disabling auto-gain and rerunning the Microphone Check.

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This is an interesting finding. I use lots of list commands and have never noticed this before.

However, I was not able to replicate the problem. When I made this custom Advanced Scripting command:

Test test <fruit>

The list consists of the following three items, with a blank line at the end...

Apples
Bananas
Oranges
[Blank line]


When I tested this command, it worked as expected. It was only triggered when I said one of the three list items. When I substituted another word or phrase, e.g., "test test five," Dragon didn't recognize it as a command.

Alan,

I wouldn't expect this test scenario to replicate the issue. What if you reverse the order of the words to " test test"? That would give you the same syntax as the " 5" command that Matt describes. "Test test five" should never fire the command as "five" isn't in the list at all, but "test test" should, if the blank line indeed means that you can utter the command with or without one of the words in the list. (To have "test test five" fire the command you'd have to write it as "test test ".)

Matt,

it sounds like you didn't remove the blank line from your list when you created the DVC script? You definitely should.

Hope that helps, Stephan


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Thanks, Stephan, but I definitely removed the blank line, at least as much as you can in the Command Browser. (There always seems to be a hard return at the end of a list.)

I'm pretty sure I have isolated the command that is causing the problem, because if I remove the command the problem disappears. But darned if I can figure out why it is causing the problem.

I will keep experimenting to see if there's a way to fix this.

Blank lines in lists have nothing to do with it. What exactly is the Recognition History showing? Just the word "Five" or is it "five" (case matters) by itself, with the x as a command?



You needn't look in the command name, but rather your lists. Export your commands as XML and towards the bottom of the file, you will find the listing commands list contents. Search for the term that triggers the problem. If you have any command add-on sets, you'll have to look there (KB could be a culprit if you use it).

Hth,

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PG

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It's showing 5 x.  There is no command that has only a single number, hence my bewilderment.

The command that I think is causing the problem has two lists, the first containing four items: left, right, up, and down; the second containing numbers, such as 1 through 100.  One should be able to trigger the command only by saying something like "up 30". 

Over the last few days, I have tried the command with simple number lists, containing only numbers, and lists with written and spoken forms, like "five\5".  These changes did not resolve the problem.

Yesterday, I added a new version of the first list to my commands, with a different name, but the same elements (left, right, up, and down).  So far, this seems to have resolved the problem, but it may recur.

"5" is not in the Dragon vocabulary. It comes from a command name list or a custom word entry. When you say "five," Dragon recognizes "five" but uses its internal rules (and your setting in Options) to format it as a numeral or a word. If the recognition history shows the number itself, it comes either from a custom word you added or a command name (from a list, probably). Look in custom words, look in the xml file of exported commands. Let us know.

Btw, the format for a custom word would be "5\five" if you wanted "5" as the written part or the part for use in the command and "five" is what you say (spoken part). I have mentioned the problem with number lists before, and they should be complex up to at least the setting you have in options.

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PG

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Thank you.

There is no custom word "5". I had checked that first.

Accordingly, I conclude that it is somehow getting this from a custom command, but there is no custom command titled "5", either directly or as part of a list that is a title. Put another way, in theory to trigger any of the commands you should have to say something more than "five". Somehow, just saying a single digit (and it doesn't have to be five, it could be four or seven or whatever) triggers the command.

In any event, it seems that by deleting the command that consisted of two parts, and reformulating it very slightly, almost trivially, the problem has gone away. For that reason, I'm pretty sure I know which command was causing the problem, but not why. If the problem recurs, I'll do more testing and post here.

Interesting point about number lists needing to be complex up to the setting you have chosen in options. I have not found that to be the case in more recent versions of Dragon, but perhaps I will experiment.

You know, try taking just "5" out of that list in that command (or all the number numerals below your option setting). Save, close and reopen your profile and see if the recognition of "five" becomes "five" again . . . or did you do that already?

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PG

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I could do that, but I would have to remove some key numbers. It's not just "five" that is being misrecognized as a command.

I have rewritten the command that I think is the offending command to deal with the complex list problem, by using your solution, PG.

Unfortunately, this morning the problem is still occurring. Interestingly, sometimes "five" is recognized as "five" and typed out and other times it is recognized as "5" and the command is triggered. Other numbers seem to be working correctly this morning.

I have tried to attach a screenshot of the recognition history.

This is getting even stranger. I deleted the command that I thought was the source of the problem, but I'm still finding that the word "five" is is sometimes recognized as "5" and as a command. It seems to insert a hard return.

I've checked my vocabulary several times and there is no entry for "5", just "five".  I also have confirmed that my commands don't have any commands that are triggered simply by saying "5" or "five". I've attached a screenshot from the Command Browser, using "5" as the filter word. You can see that there are no commands listed that only contain "5".  Yet, as you can see from the attached recognition history, at times when I say "five", it is recognized as "5" and triggers some sort of command.

I have tried creating a new user, but I had the same problem.

I suppose I can go through all of my commands and use PG's advice about numbers and complex lists, so that there are no single-digit numbers as numerals in lists in my commands.

Yes, at this point you should export your commands into an xml file, open that file in notepad (or another simple text editor) and search for "5" to find that number inexplicably and unintentionally added to another list (and where that list is the only "word" in a command name).

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PG

Remember folks, my comments and this forum are for entertainment value only, please, no wagering or other reliance on the contents herein.  I permit no commercial use of my ideas (whether expressions or embodiments) without my written consent.

But why wouldn't that have showed up when using a filter of "5" in the Command Browser?

Anyway, I've now pruned my mycmds.dat file to remove or replace all commands that have "5" (or other single digit numbers) with a complex list, then added your suggested way to extract the numbers in the command text, a la: 

x = ListVar1
If InStr(x,"\") Then x = Left(x,InStr(x,"\")-1)

So far, I'm not having the problem of "five" being recognized as a mysterious "5" command.  But the problem has been intermittent, so I'm not declaring victory yet.

Problem just recurred, after removing or replacing all commands that have single-digit numbers in a list, with complex lists using the written form/spoken form for numerals 1 to 9.  I continue to be baffled. I think I will create yet another user to see what happens.

At this point, I am still having the problem. It does seem to go away if I remove some custom commands I have written for the Spelling Window and the Correction Menu. Most of those commands use numbered lists, which I have rewritten along the lines suggested by PG. That doesn't seem to fix the problem, surprisingly.

I should note that I have experienced the problem in many different applications, including DragonPad, Microsoft Word, and ProgramEdit. It doesn't really make sense to me that commands for the Spelling Window and the Correction Menu would affect behavior in other applications, but somehow it seems that they do. Of course, the Spelling Window and Correction Menu are invoked somehow in those applications, when you try to correct an error.

The problem does seem to most often occur with the number "5", but I have had it occur with other numbers in the past. Here's an example of one of the commands, for the Correction Menu:

Name: take <1to10pg>

<1to1pg> consists of the following elements:
10
1\one
2\two
3\three
4\four
5\five
6\six
7\seven
8\eight
9\nine

Here's the script:

Sub Main
    x = ListVar1
    If InStr(x,"\") Then x = Left(x,InStr(x,"\")-1)

    SendSystemKeys "{Alt+"& x &"}", 100
    Wait .2
    SendKeys "{End}",1
    Wait .1
End Sub

This all beats the heck out of me. All I can figure to do is to keep trying those commands one by one, to see if I can use any of them without triggering the "5" problem.

This is a long shot, but under Tools --> AutoFormatting Options, what are your settings for "Numbers, if greater than or equal to"?

Ten, so my numbers are now written in complex lists, with written/spoken forms for numbers 1-9, as PG recommended.

If I use the filter on the Command Browser, it shows no command using "5".  And I can't find any entry of "5" reviewing the xml export of the mycmds.dat file.

Totally mystifying.

But I appreciate the question\suggestion.

I haven't really followed the thread, but are you aware that there is a buit-in list 1-10 that contains the numerals 1-10? This wouldn't be visible in the mycommands.dat.

Just my 2 ct, Stephan

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I was dimly aware of that. But what is the relevance? Why would that list and any other built-in list be causing my problem?

Interestingly, earlier today I exported and then deleted all of the commands for the Correction Menu and the Spelling Window. The problem did not recur. I then reimported those commands in groups, sorting them by ones that contained numerical lists and the ones that did not. At this point, I have not had the problem recur this morning, so I'm mildly optimistic.

 

Those two lists, from the system.dvc file?  They are comprised of the words, not numerals. Perhaps some 3P add-on is giving that result, but it isn't Dragon (in modern editions). Unless you tell it to, by adding it as a command name or custom word, Dragon will only ever recognize the spoken words.  You just won't see the numeral "5" as a recognized word in the Recognition History.

-------------------------

PG

Remember folks, my comments and this forum are for entertainment value only, please, no wagering or other reliance on the contents herein.  I permit no commercial use of my ideas (whether expressions or embodiments) without my written consent.

Right. Raising squarely the question of what is causing Dragon at times to recognize single-digit numbers as commands.

The only third-party add-on I have is SayWhatPro, which should not be relevant here. I do not have Knowbrainer and have not enabled NatLink, or Vocola or any other third-party command package.

Over the last day or two, I have pruned all commands so that none of my commands uses a single digit number in a list, except as a written form. Accordingly, I really don't understand why the numerals "5", "2", and "3" were being recognized as commands earlier this morning.

All is well right now. Maybe deleting the Correction Menu and Spelling Window commands and then re-importing them somehow magically fixed the problem.

There is a type of Dragon command that does not appear in the Command Browser. These are commands Dragon generates on-the-fly based on objects that appear in an application's user interface.

For example, you won't find "click File" in the command database, but Dragon recognizes it in virtually every application that has a File menu.

In web browsers, the command to activate a hypertext link is "click [any part of the link text]." For example, to activate a link that reads "Contact us now," you can say one of six things:

"click Contact us now"
"click Contact us"
"click us now"
"click Contact"
"click us"
"click now"

All are commands that Dragon generates as needed. The prefix "click" is required by default for this class of commands but the requirement can be toggled off.

Could "five" refer to an object in the UI? What happens when you press Alt + 5? This hotkey is the equivalent of saying "choose five" in the Spelling Window. But not many applications use this key combination, although Microsoft Office products use Alt + 1, Alt + 2, etc. to activate items on the Quick Access toolbar.

+1 Alan. Say-What-You-See commands are generated on the fly. I have an app with buttons just called by number numerals ("1" "2" "3" etc) and they do get recognized as number numerals, but they are application specific.

Otherwise, I was gonna say, I still wonder if OP has ever seen the behavior in a brand new profile? It has to be coming from somewhere. Did OP export all commands to an xml and see if some number numerals got inadvertently added to another list?

-------------------------

PG

Remember folks, my comments and this forum are for entertainment value only, please, no wagering or other reliance on the contents herein.  I permit no commercial use of my ideas (whether expressions or embodiments) without my written consent.

OP here. Thanks for your suggestions, Alan.

As I've said in an earlier post or two, I've seen this behavior in several applications, including DragonPad, Microsoft Word, SayWhatPro, and ProgramEdit. I could see it happening in Microsoft Word because of commands generated on the fly, with all the buttons and doodads across the top of the screen on the so-called ribbon. I don't really know why would happen in DragonPad or SayWhatPro.

As I also said in an earlier thread, I have exported all the commands to an XML file and did not find any single digit numerals in a list. I also have searched using the filter function in the Command Browser, and searching for "5" returns nothing.

I have seen the behavior in a brand-new profile, but only after I have added my commands. Now, I didn't do extensive testing on the brand-new profile before adding the commands, because I can't live without my custom commands. It makes dictation just too difficult.

Also, because this problematic behavior is intermittent, even if it did not happen in a brand-new profile immediately, it might happen a day or two later.

Alan, as you say, "it has to be coming from somewhere", but darned if I can figure out the source.

One other data point: usually, but not invariably when the single digit command is triggered, there is usually a hard return involved. Sometimes the cursor moves more than just with a hard return, but sometimes not.

It can't be an audio gain problem, because the recognition history shows only the single numeral being recognized.

The problem with individual numerals being recognized as commands has never really gone away from me, but I think today I have found the command that is causing it and a solution. The command that is causing it is a List command, with two Lists, one consisting of items like "left", "up", and "backspace" and the other a complex List consisting of numerals from 1 to 100, such as "3/3" and "31\thirty-one". The command first extracts the written form of the 2nd list and then combines the two variables in a SendKeys instruction, so that you get things like

SendKeys "{right 31}"

The command works perfectly and is quicker than the built-in command "go [direction] [number]", but for some reason it triggers the problem with a single being recognized as a command.

I have modified the command so that the List of numerals is a simple list of numerals, such as "3" and "31" and the problem has gone away. I don't know how to explain this.

This is helpful. Couple of things jump out. The handling of numbers has always been weird. The complex or mixed-complex solution may have been a mistake, or rather only a partial fix (although for me, the problem has not recurred since I started doing that and I use my 1-200 mixed list a lot). As Stephan noted high above, the built-in lists ARE numerals (at least in the international versions - the US version is still words unless you "fixed" the mousegrid problem with my soln) and so that can't really be the problem, can it (besides, the command vocab is different from the words vocab). Certainly, so far, if an all-numeral list is working than that should be fine in the general case.

To be certain, with that info in mind, I would start a brand new profile and hopefully eliminate any confusion with recognizing those commands coming from Dragon internalizing all the testing and trying it out different ways, etc. you may have done (which I implicate in my problem with it arising in the first place).

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PG

Remember folks, my comments and this forum are for entertainment value only, please, no wagering or other reliance on the contents herein.  I permit no commercial use of my ideas (whether expressions or embodiments) without my written consent.

Yes, the handling of numbers has always been very strange.
I've tested this previously with a brand-new profile, both with and without the triggering command. Whenever I imported the command, the issue recurred. Unfortunately, I really like and use the triggering command.
Now that I have WinWrap Basic through DPI 15.6, I've been cleaning up some of my commands and writing new ones, so I turned back to this issue. Brainstorming about it, it finally occurred to me to use a numerical digit-only list and see what happened.
Now, in the past, I had thought that I had fixed the problem, only to see it recur, so maybe I am declaring victory too soon here, but I really think I have a solution.

Apparently, I spoke too soon. The problem has recurred using the same command with a simple list. I have deleted that command and the problem has gone away. Strange how the problem is intermittent. Perhaps it has something to do with the way custom commands are compiled?

This past weekend, I think I resolved this mysterious and nagging problem. I have narrowed it down to one command that causes the problem. Interestingly, the problem occurs using the command either in the mycmds.dat file, as an Advanced Scripting command, or as a Vocola command. The command name is comprised of two lists, the first one whose entries are left, right, up, and down, and the second whose entries are numbers between 1 and 100. The idea is that I can move the cursor by saying something like "right 20", rather than using the built-in command "go right 20".

For some reason, Dragon sometimes hears a command when I simply say a single number, such as five. I can go into the recognition history and see that Dragon has recognized 5, and as a command, even though there is absolutely no command that you can find in the Command Browser that consists of a single number.
Of course, I could just stick with the built-in command, or I could use Kim Patch's Utter Command structure and say "20 left", but the built-in command requires a silly extra syllable and is not as fast as my command and Kim's structure is simply counter to the way I think. I think first direction and second the number of spaces I need to move. I really don't like commands that are counter to the way I think, because I think they increase the cognitive load of using speech recognition.

I seemingly have resolved the problem by breaking the command into four separate commands, in Vocola. That is, the command is no longer comprised of two lists, but only one list, <1to100>, and the four commands are "right <1to100>", "left <1to100>", "up <1to100>", and "down <1to100>". Somehow, having the first part of the command consist of a list creates the problem. I used Vocola in part because it is far easier to deactivate a command in Vocola than in Advanced Scripting.

I say seemingly, because I've only been using the new approach for a few days. It is possible that the problem will mysteriously recur. I've had that happen before. Out of an abundance of caution, I have added Dragon bar messages to each of the commands, in case the error recurs. That way, if saying "5" triggers the problem, I can look at the Dragon bar and see which command was recognized. (To do this, I created Advanced Scripting commands that simply do the Dragon bar message, and then used HeardWord in the Vocola commands to call the appropriate Advanced Scripting command that does the Dragon bar message.)

I'm posting this here mostly because I want to show off! Also, this might help somebody else.

KnowBrainer 2017 includes your <direction> <1to100> command which we haven't had a problem with but Dragon 15 seems to be more inclined to trigger a command instead of dictation. You might try moving the Pause required before command slider a little further to the right. We find the default setting to be slightly off. You will find this option in the DragonBar Options/Commands tab

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Thanks, Lunis.  I don't know why I have this problem, but it's interesting that Knowbrainer has the same command and doesn't have the same problem.  I'm not sure why we dictation/command slider should affect this, but if the problem recurs I will give it a try.

 

It doesn't make sense to me that the double list commands or commands like edit<1to10> are causing the issue of single digit commands being recognised but then it depends what it says on the recognition history?

 

My guess is that the single digit commands are being generated by UIA or MSAA for particular user interfaces or possibly by a dragon web extension if the application is a browser. The next time it happens check the recognition history again and take a note of what application you are using and the particular window. Dragon does auto generate and remove commands  for various user interfaces on the fly all the time so it could be that.

 

The other possibility is that if you use KnowBrainer there is an older command/command set with lists of letters that could cause this problem e.g. an example would be:

 

<Letters>

<Letters><Letters>

…

 

Check the global commands tab on the KB sidebar for these commands.

 

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We had to remove the <Letters> ect commands because we were asking for trouble and Dragon already handles lowercase letters better than KnowBrainer. We use the KnowBrainer Code <AllCapAlphabet> etc. commands for dictating capital letters and numbers. The Dragon spell <All Caps> <letters> is simply not reliable.

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I'm really not sure, Lindsay. Thanks for asking. Right now, the problem is not occurring, but it can be strangely intermittent.

I have deleted almost all of my global commands, at which point the problem goes away. I have moved some of the commands to Vocola, without problem. (Whenever a Vocola command is triggered, I use a combination of a HeardWord instruction and a one line Advanced Scripting command to show a message in the DragonBar, so I would know if Vocola is causing the problem.)

It seems that the problem now is somehow caused by having a list of numbers in a global command in Advanced Scripting. I am open to suggestions on how to test this. I have been slowly adding back in global commands that do not use numbers, particularly ones that are very difficult or impossible to re-create in Vocola, and seeing if the problem rears its ugly head.

This morning, I added back in a command I use with the Spelling Window, named "edit <1to10>”, and the problem recurred. I deleted the command, and the problem did not recur. Normally, I would take this to mean that this particular command somehow caused the problem, but the problem is so intermittent that I am not confident of this. Accordingly, I re-created that command, but added a specific DragonBar message to the command, so if that triggers the problem, I will know. This is, however, a tedious way to identify the problem.

If there were a way to identify exactly which command was being triggered, it would be easy to solve the problem. As far as I know, however, this is not possible. Saying "show recognition history" simply enables you to determine if in fact the problem was caused by a command, but not which command. The Dragon.log doesn't seem to show the information I need.

I think I will continue to add back in various Advanced Scripting commands that don't use lists of numbers and make sure the problem doesn't recur. If that works for couple of days, maybe I will add in commands that use lists of numbers, or maybe I will just move those commands to Vocola, which handles things like that very well.

Your suggestion about the single digit commands being generated by Dragon for particular interfaces is interesting, but this problem has occurred in DragonPad, Jarte, and Notepad++, and I really don't think Dragon could be doing that for all of those programs.

I am not using Knowbrainer. It's a wonderful product, but there was no way I could've gotten my former employer to install it, and, now that I am retired, I am too used to my own custom commands to add in the Knowbrainer commands.

A very smart member of the forum here was nice enough to look at my mycmds.dat file and my global vocola file (_vocola.vcl) and agrees that there is absolutely nothing in those files that should cause this problem. He suggested that it might be Dragon on-the-fly commands, as Alan Cantor had suggested nearly two years ago. But, since this problem occurs in DragonPad, Jarte, and Notepad++, that doesn't really seem possible.

It's also quite strange that it is intermittent.

I'm just going to ignore it and write commands in both mycmds.dat and Vocola without thinking about it.

And, yes, I have created new users, and the issue remains.