Netscape custom.dic weirdness

For the past month or so my NS 7.1's spellchecker has gotten stupid. At least it won't learn new words when I enter them. So a week ago I did a Search to find the path, found the custom.dic file, and opened it. Everything seemed OK until I noticed that there were no entries after the letter U. V-Z weren't there. How come?

I almost daily send an e-mail to a friend, Wil. When the spellchecker doesn't recognize that word, I "teach" it, but the next time it again doesn't recognize his name and the word still doesn't appear in the custom.dic file. Why?

Just now I opened that file again and noticed an asterisk (*) as the very first entry. I recall that DOS won't read some things containing certain symbols. I've removed the *, did a Save, and I also did something else. Earlier in the path to the custom.dic file is Microsoft\proof\custom. That file seems more complete, including V-Z, so I copied and pasted the contents of that entire file into the custom.dic file. There's obviously a lot of duplication, but a quick NS Compose test worked the way it should, recognizing "Wil" and "Wal-Mart," for example, which it wouldn't before.

Any ideas what's been going on?

 

BOBBO,

For reasons unknown, your custom.dic file became corrupt, as noted by the Asterix at the beginning of the file...

When that happens you can rename custom.dic to Xcustom.dic, compose a message and add a word in order to recreate you personal dictionary (custom.dic). Next, you can copy the "Good" contents of the corrupt file to the newly created file, and it will work just fine.

Not sure what you are referring to here:
Earlier in the path to the custom.dic file is Microsoft\proof\custom.

I ask because the path to the custom.dic file is:
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\profilename\*.slt

Maybe I'm having one of those "Senior moments ".

 

I used the old type spellcheckers only once, and never used them again.
Thunderbird1.5 has the spellcheck as you type style, which is super. Consider getting Thunderbird1.5, or Seamonkey1.0, and then get rid of that old clunker 7.1. I am using Seamonkey1.0, now. It is a suite like Netscape7.x, and, it is better than its component parts (Firefox+Thunderbird, or an updated Mozilla).
They, probably, use the Microsoft (Windows) file.

 

Ramona: Thanks for the reply. I sorted out the custom.dic situation succesfully today, mostly along the lines you recommended. I suspected that the asterisk might be at least part of the problem.

The Microsoft path I mentioned starts the same as the Mozilla path but in the Application Data folder there is a choice of Microsoft or Mozilla folders. I found a custom.dic file in each one of them. I'm not sure, but the Microsoft path may be attached to an IE browser.

Westside: I've toyed with the idea of switching to both of the programs you mentioned. First I thought FF and TB would be the way to go. Then I noticed how many problems people were having with them. More recently Ramona recommended Seamonkey and it sounded good. Since Netscape is behaving itself for me, I'll stick with it a bit longer until Seamonkey has proved itself to be reliable enough to warrant my making the switch.

 

Bobbo,
I am using Seamonkey1.0, and I don't make it default, yet, because it uses the same type of profiles as Netscape, and Mozilla, and, I don't want to get mixed up with profiles, which I still use. It may be ok, but I rather keep separate programs, for now.