Problem with entering Google Scholar after losing access to university account

hgray

My access to academic literature through one university was discontinued, and I wanted to switch my proxy access to my current university. However, I couldn't get into Google Scholar through Firefox. I had thought the problem was the university's Firefox plug-in (e.g., LibX) or perhaps Scholar preferences.

No -- the problem was Zotero. After talking to several tech folks, finally one person advised that I go to Preferences-Proxies and delete the discontinued university, which Zotero had automatically "remembered" as a proxy resource.

I suggest Zotero examine it's ability to "remember" proxy resources and inability to un-remember that resource. Otherwise, other ordinary users will have trouble dealing with this kind of problem.

Thanks!

adamsmith

What would you expect Zotero to do? The remembering proxy feature is super-convenient for most of us - and it's easy to turn off. So what's the alternative that you're suggesting more specifically.

hgray

Yes, I certainly found it very convenient myself, while it worked.

I suppose the info (and a word of caution) might be added to the documentation. I don't see a way to find this issue through the documentation TOC. (One can search for an explanation of proxies, but it doesn't mention this issue.)

Is there a way for zotero to detect when a proxy log-in is rejected? Perhaps that could trigger a dis-remembering.

I'm an end-user, not a programmer. Keep in mind that I encountered this problem through ordinary searches via google, not through any explicit use of zotero.

dstillman

Is there a way for zotero to detect when a proxy log-in is rejected?

Well, what happened exactly? Do you just mean that it took you to your old proxy login page when you tried to access Google Scholar, and you no longer had a login? That's not really a possible trigger—what if someone mistypes their password?

dstillman

The only change I can think of in Zotero itself would be some sort of indication when Zotero is proxying you (e.g., an auto-hiding pop-up in the bottom right like the save pop-up), but that could get annoying pretty quickly.

adamsmith

no, please no pop-up. I (and I suspect many of us) use this feature every day and really don't want a pop-up.
Improving the documentation is the first and easiest step, I'll try to tackle that on the weekend.
hgray - as for specific ideas - I wasn't asking you to write the code, but before we can ask Dan or someone else to do that, there needs to be a conceptual solution - i.e. how things should look.

hgray

I'm mostly just trying to share my experience as an ordinary user. I've got various plug-ins etc, I may not use or remember them all and don't know how they really work. It had been along time since I had set up zotero. So when I found myself blocked from using Google Scholar, I tried to look up Scholar settings and called university tech support. I hadn't even thought of zotero as the issue. Anyway...

You're right that a regular pop-up would be terrible.
Dan is right that you wouldn't want a single mistyped password to trigger something. But -- if the proxy fails to get through on multiple attempts -- could zotero then trigger a pop-up (or simply remind us to edit the zotero proxy preferences)?

adamsmith

your feedback is certainly valued - we just have to translate this into a feasible solution. Multiple password failures might not be the best way to do that - if I know I don't have Univ. access any more it seems unlikely that I would just keep trying...

Maybe go back to the idea of some sort of auto-hiding pop-up warning like Dan suggest above - I read this too quickly and thought it was going to be a "real" pop-up that would need to be OKd. But something like the save pop-up might actually be nice.

dstillman

Yes, I certainly wasn't suggesting anything that would require user intervention. And even an auto-hiding pop-up could be distracting. But given that this feature is rather subtle and has the potential to confuse users, and it's altering the standard browsing experience even when it's working properly, a one-second pop-up might be worth trying out.