Help! Zotero doesn't save annotations or highlights on my MacBook with Zotero viewer

paulinalehmkuhl

Hello,

I have the newest Zotero and work on a MacBook Pro and an iPad. I noticed that the annotations I make on my PC are not saved at all after I close the tab! I spent the last hour reading up on the subject but to no avail. I use the built-in reader and all the memos or highlights disappear as soon as I close the tab. My files are synced automatically. I tested it the other way around and annotated a document on my iPad - all the annotations are visible on my Mac so that is where the problem must be. Interestingly enough, I tried opening my article on my Mac in Zotero with Adobe, and annotations made there stay visible! I would like to keep using the built-in document viewer though. Can somebody help, please? I just updated my data program - can it be related? Also, a strange thing - I found an older article that I annotated, and my own comments (memos) are locked as if written by another user. I am helpless.

dstillman

Are you using the Zotero beta? This was a bug in a recent beta that we fixed several days ago, and by now you should've seen multiple pop-up alerts warning you to upgrade.

paulinalehmkuhl

Thanks for your quick reply! Yes, it helped! My Zotero is practically permanently open so I haven't got any pop-ups until I restarted it.

I noticed that I cannot use Zotero-synching with my fav program for annotating on iPad (PDF expert). Is there any way to make it work or do users must stick to Zotero Viewer?

dstillman

No, we pushed a special alert dialog to everyone running the affected beta versions, warning that there was a bug and upgrading was needed. Unless something is blocking both push notifications and daily translator/style update checks for you, you should’ve seen it several times.

To be clear, if you don’t intend to be running the beta, you should reinstall the release version of Zotero from the download page. Either way, if you encounter problems, be sure to check for updates.

I noticed that I cannot use Zotero-synching with my fav program for annotating on iPad (PDF expert). Is there any way to make it work or do users must stick to Zotero Viewer?

The Zotero iOS app only syncs annotations with the built-in PDF reader on the desktop. If you want to use another tool, you can use linked files and sync files yourself as you would’ve done before Zotero 6 and the iOS app.