I noticed that after having updated from KDE 4.4 to 4.4.1 in Kubuntu 9.10, automatic spell checking doesn't work in Kwrite/Kate/Kile. In fact, spelling checking (non-automatic) doesn't work, period. I tried installing a new language and setting that as system default along with the required language packs (including dictionaries) but it didn't work. I haven't restarted my system yet, however, so maybe that will make a difference.

Any ideas?

Have you logged out and back in again? Also, have you tried running "kbuildsycoca4 --noincremental"?

Logging back in worked. I wonder if it was necessary changing my system language though.

It was probably related to the update not having been able to take full effect, as KDE background processes ( such as KDE Daemon and KLauncher ) were still running using the older 4.4.0 libraries.