I have the same problem (with MSWord 2003 under XP as well as with OpenOffice.org 2.3 under XP, the newest available versions of Zotero and of the respective plugins. I also followed all advices I could find: deleted zotero.dot and re-installed the plugin, updated reset translators and styles). The problem does not depend on specific documents, it also appears with new ones. However, while the OpenOffice-plugin does not work at all, within MSWord the communication-errors only occur when I choose for certain citation styles. I did not check all of them, but "Modern Humanities Research Association (Note without Bibliography)" is one of the problematic ones.

I read the thread and created a new Firefox profile, reinstalled Zotero on that profile as Dan suggested to miluska some time back, and this finally allowed me to insert new citations into my document with Zotero.

Trying a new profile was intended only as a test before we knew the causes of the problem. Currently, documents are tied to a particular Zotero database, so you can't use existing documents with a new profile. You'll need to go back to your previous database in order to use existing documents.

In your original profile, first make sure Zotero's translators are up-to-date by going to the Zotero prefs and clicking Update Now on the General pane. (This should only be necessary after an upgrade to 1.0.2 and before a daily auto-update.) Then, if you're able to insert citations into a new Word document, follow the steps in my previous post to isolate any problematic citations in your existing documents.

Alternatively, there's now code on the dev branch that may repair existing documents. We'd appreciate feedback from anyone running a dev build who can test existing documents currently exhibiting the communication error.

Please note that dev builds are not intended for general use, so please test only if you know what you're doing and have backups of your Zotero database and existing documents. We'll be releasing 1.0.3 from this branch within a day or two.

To everyone else, thanks for the patience. The word processor plugins are still in beta, but we're hoping to be able to declare them as stable in the near future.

Ok, I'm running 1.0.2.r2168 and I am not sure if this is development version or not, Firefox keep updating this.

That's the dev version. You can switch to the official version by installing Zotero from the front page of zotero.org over your current copy.

I still get the same error message.

Do you get the error in a new document, or only in existing documents?

If you still get it in existing documents with the latest dev version, can you 1) send in an error report via Report Errors (under Zotero's Actions menu) if it's activated (non-gray) after you get the communication error and post the Report ID here and 2) follow the steps I outlined two posts ago and send us an excerpt from a document that triggers the error?

I'm suffering the same problem as bjn.

Following the 1.0.3 update, Firefox and OpenOffice was seizing up. After removing Zotero and the extensions, and importing my backed up library it works fine on new documents. However, it's now saying that the citation no longer exists on older documents with more citations than I'd prefer to have to manually replace.

Same Problems as everyone else. I just download Zotero this evening. Zotero 1.0.3 and Word2003 SP3 on a PC with Windows XP. The error statement is "An Error occurred communicating with Zotero. Please ensure Firefox is open and try again." Firefox is open and I have tried with the Zotero window open and closed, with no success. I am able to drag and drop individual citation entries, but I would like to use the Window plug in. I downloaded the installer 1.0b3 and installed it. The Zotero tool bar appears but I just get the above error. I tried to report an error, but the report error section is grayed out. Anything I have missed?

tadoslav: Ticket created, thanks.

Can you export one of the references that triggers the error in a new document and send the RDF file to support@zot....org?

Will citations continue to be linked to ids?

No.

Actually, tadoslav, that's been fixed already since 1.0.3.

We'll try to get 1.0.4 out soon with the fix.

So I look forward to 1.0.4. FYI, I am using Chicago dev.

Report ID 1435470020. Windows XP SP2, Word 2003, latest versions of plugin, Zotero and Firefox. Getting Communication error message. Is the promised new version going to fix this?

I do not know whether this will help anyone.
My Word2000 always collapsed when I clicked on the any of the plug in buttons of Zotero.
Than I tried to start Word by double click on the normal.dot and it works fine.
But when I start Word by using the "usual way"; word is collapsing as soon as I try to use Zotero.
You can even start Word by double click on Zotero.dot and it works, but you will not have your customised settings in word.

It is not a clean way to start word but it might help if you urgently need to submit a document and noting else is working.

No, it doesn't work in brand new (i.e. empty) documents, or existing ones.

In that case, debug output sent to support@zot....org would be helpful.

Nope. Nothing changed.

Yes I am. I simply copied the text from the page and amended the program location. Firefox opens fine, but I see no DOS-like window, or any window for that matter.

Interesting. I went back and tried again, simply selecting the same command line I used before from the drop-down list in the run window, and it worked this time. I eventually managed to work out how to copy the contents. I have now sent the content to support. I look forward to finding out what the problem is.
Thanks for your help thus far.

Now we are getting somewhere :-)
I turned off the firewall, and pressed the Zotero Set doc prefs button. This completely froze Word and required three attempts to kill it with Task Manager. I then reopened Word and tried again. This time I got the message:
This version of the Zotero Word plugin ($INTEGRATION_VERSION) is incompatible with the currently installed version of the Zotero Firefox extension (1.0,3). Please ensure your are using the latest versions of both components.
At one point I had reverted back to 1.0b1, as the other one hadn't worked. So I uninstalled, reinstalled the 1.0b3 version and it now works with the firewall switched off. However, if I switch the firewall back on (Avira Premium Security Suite), and try to insert a citation, the "Citation" field now appears, but the message about an error communicating with Zotero appears again and now there is a load of stuff in the debug window, which I have now sent to support.

Zotero doesn't exist as an application as far as I can tell, so I can't simply give it authorisation to pass the firewall.

The applications involved are Word and Firefox.

Also, it is internal to the computer, so how does the firewall actually affect this?

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/1155/#Item_12

Have the same problem - communication error - regardless of new or old files. Going through all citation formats systematically, I at first thought that only footnote/endnote-style inserts weren't working, but this is not the case. Then I thought it was using numeric superscripts, but some formats work with that, too. The following citation formats give that error for me, regardless of using footnote or endnote format:

American Sociological Association
Chicago Manual of Style (Author-Date)
Chicago Manual of Style (Note with Bibliography)
Chicago Manual of Style (Note without Reference List)
Modern Humanities Research Association (Note without Bibliography)

I've run through the console/debug to turn it on, but since others have reported don't know if it's worth posting to bugfixes the same error.

Yep - Report Errors just submitted now as 1135333154.

I had the same problem with a communicating error. I did as Dan suggested and copied and pasted pages of text at a time until I found my error. I don't know if this is the case for everyone, and I was not able to replicate it in another document, but I suppose it is something. The error came about from inserting a reference into a footnote, and editing the reference to exclude the author's name using the checkbox. By redoing the reference, I was able to insert references again into the rest of the document. Maybe that will help someone...

I think I'm having some related trouble. I just started using NeoOffice for Mac (Intel), and while the first couple of citations worked just fine, soon I got this message:

"this citation no longer exists in the zotero database"

.. it asked me to delete, and I said no. The citation came through OK, but I can't figure out why I'm getting such messages, or if/when they'll ever go away!

Second question: When I go to pick out my citation, I'm noticing that nearly every database entry I have has duplicate records -- is that normal? Did I mess up something on the import from Google Scholar, for instance? This is the first time I've noticed these duplicates.

Thanks.

There is something strange going one with one of my documents.

I have had the communicating with zotero-error message like many others here. It seemed like it all started after I had forgotten to start firefox before inserting a citation. I got an error message, but the message kept popping up after I did start firefox. I tried the strategies discussed here, diabled/enabled the (open office) plugin, uninstalled and deleted it from my computer and reinstalled it, checked for updates until I found out that it works fine with new documents. I tried to track down the corrupted part of my document by copying sections into a new document and pressing the insert bibliography button there. I never had a problem with those cut out sections in a new document. When I go back to my original document after doing this, it suddenly works fine there as well.
The problem is, that I get error messages each morning I when I re-open the document. By now, I have been through numerous cycles of error messages, cutting sections into a new document, inserting the bibliography there and the original document working after that.
While I used to start this copying-pasting at the beginning of the document, I have just tried it with a random section from the end of the document, which equally solves the problem. It seems like merely copying a section - no matter which - into a new document and inserting the bibliography there solves the problem. Also I noticed that, when inserting the bibliography in the new document, my computer shifts to the window with the original document and there seems to be some precessing going on there as well, as the text "flickers" like it does sometimes when clicking the refresh button.

It's not like this is totally unfeasible but it is kind of annoying to have to do this over and over. Isn't there a way to see/edit commands that zotero embeds into a document and delete corrupted ones once and for all? Or might there be a different problem in this case?

I am running open office 2.3.1 and Zotero 1.0.3 on Windows XP...

Sorry, if this should be a know issue, I couldn't find anything on this here. Thanks for any help!

PS: I have just tried to send an error report but I get "invalid response from the repository"

Hello.
My situation: I tried to upgrade my OpenOffice 2.3.1 to OO2.4 (on WinXP). I had to uninstall OO2.3.1, but it turned out that for some reason Microsoft Installer doesn't work on my computer. So I had to install OO2.4 manually by extracting files from the MSI package. It was OK, now I have OO2.4 working. But Zotero doesn't work due to the communication fault. I installed OO2.3.1 (also manually), but the problem remains even in it, although Zotero used to work fine in OO2.3.1.
My question: Is there anything I missed while manual installation? Something like registration of components? Does the Zotero extension work directly with FireFox base or needs some info from the registry file? Please advise.
PS I've tried three different versions of the Zotero OO extension including the last one.

I am having this problem as well. I'm working on Firefox 2.0.0.14 and Zotero 1.0.3. I selected all the text and copied and pasted it into a new MS Word document, as someone suggested, which worked. But the next day I'm finding that I have to do this again. Will I have to create a new document every day? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I use Zotero on two different machines (with almost identical libraries) and switch the document from one computer to the other depending on whether I'm at work or at home. I'm just curious - I may just put in my own references and wait until the document is completed to enter them from Zotero...

I have the same problem with the you-know-what communication error message at my home PC, where I use:
-MS Windows XP Media Center 2002, SP-2 (German)
-MS Word 2000 SP-3 (English)
-Firefox 2.0.0.14 (English) Zotero 1.0.3, Plugin for Word 1.0b3

Strangely enough, at my office where I have...
-MS XP Professional 2002, SP-2 (English)
-MS Word 2003 SP-2 (English)
-Firefox 2.0.0.14 (English) Zotero 1.0.3, Plugin for Word 1.0b3

...the error does not occur (or has not occurred yet)... Does it have something to do with the German Version of Windows? or is it something in the settings of MS Word or Mozilla? Do others that report the communication error problem have a non-English version of Windows installed?

I've added a documentation page that summarizes some of the troubleshooting steps outlined in this thread. Make sure you are running Zotero 1.0.4, which fixes some potential causes of communication errors.