I installed both the MS Word and Openoffice extensions. The word extension works fine. But when I try to insert an citation in an Openoffice document I get the message:

"An error occurred communicating with Zotero. Please ensure that Firefox is open en try again".

However, even when Firefox is open (btw I didn't need to do that in the first place when using with Word), I get the same message.

p.s. I have my Zotero db in a custom location, but even when I moved the default location, the same error happened.

I am using Zotero 1 rc3, OpenOffice 2.2.1 on Windows XP.

Cheers

Paulo

I, too, have this error. What is causing it?

Just a side comment: wouldn't it be nice if Zotero could just open in OpenOffice? Firefox is such a resource drain, I'm starting to get annoyed at having to open if everytime I want to use Zotero.

At some point, we may be able to run a standalone Zotero bibliography engine using XULRunner, although the resource requirements may still be substantial.

pvb (or anyone else experiencing this): Could you run Zotero with debug output, reproduce the error, and send us the contents of the debug console at support@zot....org?

I too had this problem (OpenOffice 2.0 under Linux) but managed to fix it by using the Open Office Extension Manager (under "Tools" menu) to enable the Zotero extension.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure why it worked, but simply highlighting the Zotero.oxt extension in the Extension Manager and clicking the [enable] button seemed to do the job!

Hope this helps!

Hi. I had the same problem, but my solution was very different so I am posting it, maybe it helps someone else. I use Word 2007 and I got the same error. Tried uninstalling and reinstalling with no help and then it dawned on me: I use Zonealarm and I simply gave Word permission to access the internet and voila!.

If you are struggling take a look at your Firewall, maybe the problem is there.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I understand it as such, but in Zonealarm Word was refused any access, either to the Internet Zone or the Trusted Zone. So it was not Zotero who was to blame, but Zonealarm blocked any communication between Word and any other program that "appears to be a connection to any server".

Thanks for clarifying

Thank you, Paulo!
I'm using ArcGIS and was trying to make the Zotero extension work with OpenOffice and ran into the problem described above. Your solution would probably solve my problems with the Zotero extension, but I'm afraid I will then get problems with ArcGIS instead. I'm using various tools in ArcGIS, and I think Python needed to run them. Any ideas on how I can use both the Zotero extension and ArcGIS at the same time?

Thorbjørn

I am using the latest official 1.02 and OpenOffice plugin just released. Both are installed properly and the plugin shows everything enabled in the extension manager but I get the "can't communicate with Firefox" error when I try to insert a citation. Firefox is open, so at this point, I can't use my database. Is there a solution? John

For those getting communication errors, is Report Errors in the Actions (gear icon) menu becoming activated (non-gray) after you receive the communication error? If so, please send in an error report and let us know the Report ID you receive.

I've got the same problem, and also sent you an error report, which (strangly) is different from the one sent by Jon Rubin. My question really is how i can revert back to the working 1.01 version for the moment? Where can I get it from? Thanks for you for your help.
chuelibrueder

Same problem here (I had the same problem last week with the unstable version of 1.02 and downgraded to 1.01 stable). Here is the behavior I am now experiencing: I can add an empty bibliography, then open the "insert citation" dialog to select the entries I want to insert. But when I click "ok," I get the "error occurred communicating with Zotero . . ." notification without actually inserting the citation, and after that point anything I do brings up the same notification. "Report errors" doesn't show anything related to Zotero.

For the moment, I guess I'll have to go back to 1.01 until this version works with OOo if I can find it somehow.

Edit:
For those who need to revert to 1.0.1 to use Zotero with OOo, this is how I've done it:
Zotero 1.0.1 can be found here (same address as the current xpi, just replace the 2 with a 1):
http://www.zotero.org/download/zotero-1.0.1.xpi
The OOo plugin can be found here (again, just manually change the 2 to a 1):
http://www.zotero.org/download/integration/OOo-Plugin-1.0b1/Zotero.oxt
After uninstalling the current versions and reinstalling these ones, I'm once again using Zotero with OOo. I look forward to trying the new version when I can safely use it with OOo.

Thanks to everyone who sent in an error report. The relevant error seems to be this line:

[JavaScript Error: "item._csl has no properties" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/cite_compat.js" line: 370}]

What citation style are people experiencing this error using?

1.0.x releases don't auto-update translators and styles after an upgrade. If you're experiencing this problem, go to the General pane of the Zotero prefs and click Update Now.

Updating should fix the connection error, not the square issue. Sorry if that was unclear.

I created a ticket for the square issue.

Hi Yam, It's strange if you can't change your style after the initial choice, but I've made the expirience that this isn't a very good idea anyway, at least if you swap from a "normal" to a "footnote" style or the other way. After trying this I always had quite a mess with my quotes. but I guess that's not really any help. I would try to completly uninstall the OOo plugin and reinstalling the right one.

About the initial Problem: the solution by Dan Stillmann did the trick for me but I also had to do Prefs/Advanced/Reset Translators and Styles. After that it worked again, I just had to choose the citationstyle in my OOo file again.

It's really great with the new version the "edit citation" function is eventually working and I might know what this box at the end of a quote is for. I suspect it's an attempt to solve the problem of never beeing able to get out of the quotes without starting a new paragraph. It is kind of working and has solved the problem to some extend but it's still not perfect, because you always have to erase the box by hand. I guess you could also ignore them while writing and erase all boxes after finishing a paper with 'find replace', but still...

Never the less zotero is a great project and is getting greater with every release, thanks a lot.

OK, just to summarize the issues here:

1) If you're getting a communication error in OOo, first go to the Extension Manager, expand My Extensions and Zotero.oxt, and make sure ZoteroRPC.py is enabled. If not, try selecting Zotero.oxt and clicking Enable and see if that causes ZoteroRPC.py to become enabled. I've gotten errors at that point (and they've been discussed on other threads), but, at least for me, persistence, restarting OOo, and/or reinstalling the plugin has always paid off.

2) If ZoteroRPC.py is enabled and you're still getting the communication error, make sure you have the latest styles by clicking Update Now in the General pane of Zotero prefs. (Until a few minutes ago, a full reset would've been necessary, but that should no longer be the case.)

3) We're working on fixing the empty square issue. It only occurs on Windows.

On Firefox 2.0.0.11, Zotero 1.0.2, OOo 2.3.1, Zotero OOo plugin 1.0.2, WinXP, I have lost the Zotero toolbar. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the plugin (and the plugin in 'Enabled' in the OOo Extensions manager) but the toolbar does not appear in OOo.

This occurs on only one of the two machines on which I have the same set of software as listed above. How can I get the Zotero toolbar to reappear in Ooo 2.3.1?

PS: I mean, I got the 'communication error' box every time I click on any icon on the plugin bar.
I just redid everything again, problem persists.

Dan,

Thanks for threads. Though they did not solve my problem directly, they sort of inspired me to figure out some steps to get through. The key in my case was to make sure the plugin was completely gone, leaving no traits behind (uninstalled and cleaned computer, the restarted), then re-installed it. It worked!

One little hiccup still, but not sure it is something from Zotero or OOo. When I chose citation style from the plugin, I was initially not able to highlight Modern Humanities Research Association (both with & without bibliography) while I could highlight any of the others. The issue arose across several different documents. I finally (somewhat accidentally) got around it but choosing another style & clicked OK, then I opened the box again to change style, and it allowed me to choose MHRA! Again, the same happened across different documents. Weird. This is not fatal but you'd probably want to look at it some time.

Many thanks.

1.0.x releases don't auto-update translators and styles after an upgrade.

Why not? Are there any drawbacks if the translators and styles are auto-updated after a 1.0.x update?

When I chose citation style from the plugin, I was initially not able to highlight Modern Humanities Research Association (both with & without bibliography) while I could highlight any of the others. The issue arose across several different documents.

Follow-up for the selection problem on this thread.

This worked for me, although I had to jump through a few hoops before I could use OOo/Zotero without completely freezing my desktop (I'm using Ubuntu). Removing everything from ~/.openoffice.org2/user/uno_packages/cache didn't solve the problem, so after uninstalling the plugin and closing OOo, I had to track down leftover references to Zotero (using "grep Zotero -d recurse *" while in the .openoffice directory) and delete them from config files (namely, ~/.openoffice.org2/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/UI/WriterWindowState.xcu) .

Now everything seems to be working fine.

Hi folks -

we have the same problem here after updating to the most recent Zotero version - neither Open Office nor MS WORD can communicate with FF 2.0.0.11 and Z 1.0.2
(which worked under 1.0.1).

____________________

I was excited to get the plugin working again under 1.0.2, but once again it's ceased to work for me after upgrading to 1.0.3. This time I actually get a JavaScript error in Firefox:

[JavaScript Error: "[Exception... "'Command "openZotero" not found in ZoteroPane.handleKeyDown()' when calling method: [nsIDOMEventListener::handleEvent]" nsresult: "0x8057001e (NS_ERROR_XPC_JS_THREW_STRING)" location: "<unknown>" data: no]"]

(I sent the above error using the "Report Errors" function.)

Again I've tried installing/uninstalling/reinstalling/restarting, etc. in all different combinations and it hasn't worked yet.

Thanks, Joe