Ok, so it's hard to say what is the issue in your main macOS user account, but some sort of configuration option is preventing the Zotero plugin from being updated. It might help to reset your Normal.dotm in the main account and restart Word. Otherwise you will have to troubleshoot this on your own.
wow! great suggestion!!! i closed word, deleted normal.dotm, restarted word and now the error is gone!!! the couple zotero-word is working as usual and it is ... fantastic thank you a lot for the help in tracking down the problem the support you people of zotero give to us the users has an enormous value Maurizio
this action of deleting normal.dotm could possibly enter the list of routinary actions to do in case of problems with word? (i initially had the error that word pointed to an outdated zotero.dotm even if i had updated it 5 minutes before: could it have been the first appearance of the faulty normal.dotm?) Maurizio
You can find the suggestion to reset Normal.dotm in many forum threads for Zotero, but it's not standard advice because it usually resolves issues that are one-of-a-kind. I cannot remember anyone ever reporting something like what you have, and the next time resetting Normal.dotm will fix some weird bug it's likely going to be something else.
Upgrade Storage
i closed word, deleted normal.dotm, restarted word and now the error is gone!!!
the couple zotero-word is working as usual and it is ... fantastic
thank you a lot for the help in tracking down the problem
the support you people of zotero give to us the users has an enormous value
Maurizio
(i initially had the error that word pointed to an outdated zotero.dotm even if i had updated it 5 minutes before: could it have been the first appearance of the faulty normal.dotm?)
Maurizio
Glad we managed to find a solution!