I found a fix that worked on my iBook. I went to System Preferences, Network tab, then I clicked on Use Passive FTP Mode in the Proxies tab. Seemed to fix the problem. Maybe I'm paranoid, but since I am totally ignorant of this stuff I'm worried about messing something up. Does this compromise my firewall at all?

No, but it also shouldn't have any effect whatsoever on the word processor plugins, at least that I can think of. Zotero doesn't use FTP, and any semi-intelligent proxy client should automatically skip the proxy server when connecting to localhost (a.k.a. 127.0.0.1), which is how the plugins talk to Zotero. (I just verified that this works with the Leopard system proxy settings and the manual proxy settings in NeoOffice.) But there might be some cases where entering localhost or 127.0.0.1 into the list of bypassed hosts would help. If so, we'd certainly want to know about it.

And if Passive FTP mode really does have an effect, that'd be interesting news.

Report ID: 1082528361

I am getting "An error occurred communicating with Zotero. Please ensure Firefox is open and try again."

No errors related to Zotero in that error report, so you'll have to follow the other steps on the troubleshooting page.

Error Code #1579056663

The same communication problem that everyone else has listed above. I was typing a new sentence and needed to add a citation and it stopped communicating.

I had been using the Word document and Zotero (latest version) on my MacBook running 10.5.3 OS.

So I'm a little confused on what the actual fix is for this. Do I have to recopy everything over to a new document or is it something else?

Report ID 1949789392

Okay I have tried all of the trouble shooting tips that have been posted and so far nothing works.
I'm in the process of writing my thesis and I need this to work. Please help!!!

Hi,

I have found a solution to this problem

Just create another word file and make copy/paste from the current one. And now with this new word file it is fine

PS : if you want to keep the same style, take a very old one and make copy/paste and rename it to get the new one

I get the same error message in a new document, in the old document, in a document that I have copied and pasted etc... So far nothing has cleared this error. I will gladly send a copy of the document to you to try as well.

If you get the error in a new blank document, it doesn't have anything to do with your existing documents.

Try temporarily disabling any firewall/security software and restarting your computer. Make sure Firefox isn't running in more than one OS X user account. If none of that helps, send the debug output (from starting Firefox through hitting Insert Citation in Word) to support@zot....org. You should see "Integration HTTP server listening on 127.0.0.1:50001" in the debug output when you start Firefox.

Also when I tried your debug output nothing happened. The terminal said there was "No Document/file found". I followed the directions you have listed about setting the debug log to True and so on.
I'm not the most computer literate person so I am be missing something.

I have the same (communicating with Zotero) error message. (Mac OSX, FF3 latest zotero)

However, for me it normally occurs only when sing multiple citations. This appears to be due to zotero timing out. If I just add one citation and wait, I get the error message. This pretty much always happens by the time I get to the tenth citation. I've submitted an error report and pasted it below (850646878).

Any help would be much appreciated!

[JavaScript Error: "Warning: unrecognized command line flag -foreground
" {file: "file:///Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components/nsBrowserContentHandler.js" line: 661}]

[JavaScript Error: "this.docShell is null" {file: "chrome://global/content/bindings/browser.xml" line: 0}]

Erorrreport: 1590666170

Hello! I Still have the problem, that there is a communication error even if firefox is switched on. After the last uptate it seemed that everything would now funktion properly, but then it the error appeared again.
And I cannot do the copy-paste operation, because the document is pretty long and it just takes lots of time. Do you have any solution? Thanks.

Id 881161076

I have tried cancelling anti-virus and firewall. Have WinXP SP3 , Firefox 3.0.1 recently upgraded also zotero but problem mantains:
"An error occurred communicating with Zotero. Please ensure Firefox is open and try again.". Also in new documents.

Strangly once I could resolve the problem just going to the net(the connection word-firefox seemed to work again like the window where we should chouse the style of the format (APA,etc..) was freezen the program)
I hope I could help help me also
Love the program!

1607078229

Stoped working again...
It's really strange... I've already changed the macro security options of word to minimum... it resolved the problem for a while but then the problem comes back...as soon as I turn off the net...
Anything to do with erasing the bibliography?(I had to imput other entries and order alphabeticly and word couldn't do it with zotero list...)
Any help
Dead lines here

ID: 837560372

Hi -- I'm still having problems with getting Firefox 3 and Word 2007 to work on my PC (running XP, SP3). I can now get Zotero to insert refs (although it won't include page numbers) but ONLY if I click the "Show Editor" button before clicking "OK". If I don't do this and try to insert the ref without clicking "Show Editor" everything locks up and I get the same error message I posted about earlier. I then have to restart Word to be able to insert a ref. Any tips?
Many thanks for your help.

Dear Dan Stillman,
Many thanks for your suggestion. I've been trying to use the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) style. I've checked that I've updated to the latest version of this style, but it's still happening. It seems to be a problem with that particular style since other styles work fine, I now notice. The last error generated this report:
94500719
Best wishes,
Marcus

When using this citation style:
Modern Humanities Research Association (Note without Bibliography)
, the problem happened.

Of course, the switching of styles in OpenOffice.org Writer cause some problems.

I found solution to this problem for XP users...

Go to Control Panel-->Network and Internet Options-->Internet Options-->Click on Advance--> Click on Restore Advance settings.

Start your word document and then Zotero should work fine.

This had nothing to do with version of firefox or plugin ...as long as they are compatible, zotero should work fine.

So, basically its microsoft internet explorer settings which is creating all this problem..... :-) (restore all the advance settings).

Hope this works for others as well....cheers....

Rajan