Disappearing toolbar mystery
Over the past few weeks, on several occasions whilst using DNS the toolbar and tray bar (microphone) icon have suddenly disappeared without warning, I believe when the microphone was switched off. This happened again about an hour ago, however, as I had switched off the microphone by saying "Go to sleep", on this occasion I can continue using DNS after saying "wake-up". The other times I had switched off the mike using the mouse and was no longer able to get any response from DNS. Obviously, I had to exit and restart as I could no longer see anything to click on, although DNS was definitely still running ("natspeak.exe" appears under processes).
It is difficult to say what might be the cause of this behaviour although I do have one of two ideas and will need to try and pinpoint the culprit once I get some free time. However, I would be interested to know whether there is a way of restoring the toolbar/tray bar either manually or by voice.
Thanks
Graham
Graham, I seem to recall
Graham,
I seem to recall this happening to me once or twice in the past, as well. I use the tray icon and the way I recovered was by pressing the {Numkey *} (DNS menu) and selecting "Restore Previous Dragonbar Mode" and manuvering from there.
I never did find the cause of the disappearing toolbar and it happened so seldom I didn't investigate further.
Hope this helps,
-Coop
It did happen to me with the
It did happen to me with the ViaVoice toolbar on several occasions.
The answer was that I had used by a mouse to click on something, and had inadvertently flicked the edge of the toolbar causing it to skitter off the screen, rather like tiddlywinks. Unfortunately on log off and restart, the OS remembered the desktop layout as it was on closing.
What I did was to increase the screen resolution, find the toolbar, and drag it back into place.
At all times, I could access the microphone control and menu in the system tray, but since I hide my system tray, this is a bit of a pain!
Quentin
emiliaserv wrote:Over the
Over the past few weeks, on several occasions whilst using DNS the toolbar and tray bar (microphone) icon have suddenly disappeared without warning, I believe when the microphone was switched off. This happened again about an hour ago, however, as I had switched off the microphone by saying "Go to sleep", on this occasion I can continue using DNS after saying "wake-up". The other times I had switched off the mike using the mouse and was no longer able to get any response from DNS. Obviously, I had to exit and restart as I could no longer see anything to click on, although DNS was definitely still running ("natspeak.exe" appears under processes).
It is difficult to say what might be the cause of this behaviour although I do have one of two ideas and will need to try and pinpoint the culprit once I get some free time. However, I would be interested to know whether there is a way of restoring the toolbar/tray bar either manually or by voice.
Thanks
Graham
Graham,
The cause of this can result from a number of problems. The most common ones are:
1. Crosslinked files - to files can be Crosslinked, (+), not (X), when two files end up sharing sectors within two cluster chains, where these chains cross one another and end up sharing a common sector or sectors. When this happens, the execution of any 1 of these files can result in the loading of such files taking different directions depending upon which direction is taken within the 2 shared cluster chains (i.e., executed). This problem most often occurs as a result of excess file fragmentation.
2. The DragonBar DLL file can be corrupted.
I would suggest that you try the following first. Run a repair of DNS and see if repair resolves the problem.
If that doesn't work, try running chkdsk with the fix option set at boot time. This will ensure that there are no lost clusters and/or Crosslinked files and that your file structure is intact. Windows help (i.e. search on chkdsk) will explain how to do this.
After running chkdsk, run defrag on your system. Chkdsk and defrag will clean up any, are most if not all, problems and issues that may be at the root of this problem. After doing this, see if the problem resolves itself. If not, run the DNS repair again.
Let us know if any of these procedures resolve this issue. If not, then we have at least eliminated the most common sources of this problem.
Chuck Runquist
Former DNS SDK & Senior Technical Solutions PM for DNS with Lernout & Hauspie (L&H)
Thanks for the various
Thanks for the various suggestions, as one might expect, since sending my message there has been no repeat of such behaviour
Anyway, should the problem return, I will try out your tips and let you know.
Graham