Zotero fails to launch on Mac

KimSivesgaard

I have installed Zotero on my Mac (OS 11.7.7) but Zotero fails to launch.
After attempting to launch, the Zotero icon bonces in the dock for a couple of minutes and then stops. The application window does not appear and there is no error message. There is no "dot" below the icon and pressing cmd+tab does not display Zotero among the running applications. Right-clicking the icon in the dock allows me to "Force Quit".

I have tried the current release 6.0.26, 6.0.23 as well as the beta release 7.0.0 with identical results.

Can you help?

dstillman

Have you tried restarting your computer? Both Zotero 6 and Zotero 7 certainly run on Big Sur.

KimSivesgaard

Yes, I have restarted the computer several times. Also I checked for MacOS updates but it is up to date.

dstillman

What happens if you run this in Terminal, with Zotero 7?

/Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/zotero -ZoteroDebugText

KimSivesgaard

Running the command in Terminal does not seem to do anything. There is no error message in the Terminal and no .txt file on the Desktop.

dstillman

That command just starts Zotero with logging to the terminal. It doesn't create a text file.

If you add -P, does it open the profile manager?

Do you see crash reports in the Console app?

KimSivesgaard

Yes, this opened a box named "Zotero - Choose User Profile"
and in the Terminal:
2023-06-08 09:43:33.529 zotero[1562:14036] *** WARNING: Textured window is getting an implicitly transparent titlebar. This will break when linking against newer SDKs. Use NSWindow's -titlebarAppearsTransparent=YES instead.

dstillman

OK, and if you run that (along with -ZoteroDebugText) and select your profile, nothing is logged to Terminal, and, what, it hangs? Quits?

And my question about Console?

KimSivesgaard

There was/is no crash report in the Console.

From the profile manager I was able to create a profile and start Zotero.
I have successfully added a paper using the Chrome Connector and then adding a .pdf.
I have closed Zotero and successfully relaunched the application and everything seems to be working.

Apparently, the work around was to launch the profile manager using
/Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/zotero -ZoteroDebugText -P
and launch Zotero from there. Maybe importantly, I did this just after restarting my Mac again.

Thank you for your help!

dstillman

From the profile manager I was able to create a profile and start Zotero.

Wait, meaning there was no profile listed there when you first opened the profile manager?

Had you run Zotero on this computer before? I don't think we've ever heard of a profile not being automatically created.

KimSivesgaard

Exactly, the list was empty! And no, I have not rund Zotero and the computer before.

I have been running Papers apps in different versions which have similar user interfaces, but could these be able to conflict with Zotero?