Main Dictionary issue

[David Levy]

CaseCATalyst reporters, anybody had this issue?

I've been using CATalyst for many years.  I'm on Version 14.  

Last week, I had a job with two witnesses.  During the break after the first witness, I closed out the file, merged in all the new J-defines to the job dictionary, and anything in the update are to the main dictionary, which I then sent to my writer, opened a new realtime file and prepared to write.

Well, for some reason, a large number of words which have been in my main dictionary for many years, simply didn't tran, particularly words beginning with the ST, SKP, SK, STK and SP prefixes, including the question bar.  This was true on both the writer screen and the CATalyst computer screen.

I redefined all of them and merged them into the main dictionary.  It made no difference.  I've had to create a new job dictionary for all these untrans, to use on every job.  Job dictionaries seem to be unaffected.

At home, I tried substituting an older main dictionary from my backup files.  This, too, didn't make a difference.  I don't know if I'm dealing with a writer problem, a computer problem, a tran software problem or what.

Now, I don't have a CATalyst tech support contract.  It's just too bloody expensive.  Stenograph charges something over $500 for the contract, and if you're on an earlier-than-current version of CATalyst, you must upgrade and they additionally charge your $100 for each version that you're behind.  This is outrageous and I consider it gouging reporters.  It would cost me nearly a thousand bucks, which I don't happen to have lying around.  And I've got enough monthly payouts now without adding yet another.

There was a time when, if you didn't have a contract, Stenograph would charge your credit card $75, and then would give you tech support over the phone.  Those days are, apparently gone.

There was, I think, a forum for CATalyst reporters in my position, where reporters would give each other tech advice.  I don't know if it still exists or where to find it.

Can anybody offer any assistance or advice?

[Janiece Young]

You might try a group on Facebook.  Also, I am sure you have looked in your update area.  It sounds like your dictionary is corrupted.

[David Levy]

Boy, corruption is everywhere these days, LOL!

But how does such a thing happen and what can we do about it short of starting over and creating a whole new dictionary?  With 118,000 entries, that's a really tall order!