Upgrade StorageWhy I'm not renewing
After many years, I've decided not to continue with my subscription for Zotero storage (unlimited). I just wanted to let you know why.
1. I save mainly online PDFs and webpages. This has become more cumbersome over time.
i. Rightclicking on a PDF to Retrieve Metadata - if nothing is found, for a month or so a few years back there was a button to Create Parent Item. This feature was taken away. Clearly the Zotero team decided not to retain it (I asked about that at the time). It was really helpful for me.
ii. Rightclicking on a PDF to Create Parent Item used to be quicker. I now have to enter a DOI or similar (which isn't available for most PDFs I want to save) or else click Manual Entry - extra steps introduced into the process.
iii. Handling of some webpages which only popup a Zotero Item Selector on clicking the Zotero icon - there's NO option to Save to Zotero as Webpage with Snapshot, in those cases.
Unfortunately, there are many webpages where NONE of the items listed in the Item Selector match the article or webpage in question! Example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34285686
This must be due to how the website coded that webpage's metadata, but Zotero doesn't offer users a Save to Zotero as Webpage with Snapshot option there, which would at least address that problem for users.
Similarly, with some webpages there's a long list of items and no Save Webpage with Snapshot option, or any setting to automatically always Select All (I appreciate there's a manual checkbox in the selector, but it gets tedious always having to Select All).
iv. It's hard to save to Zotero from Chrome on an iPad - it used to be easier, plus it's not possible to save to a selected subfolder, only to the top level of my Web Library.
2. Pricing - there's no intermediate tier between 6GB and unlimited.
3. Errors/problems are increasing - often I have to reload or retry several times before it will save or it's completely impossible to save webpages/PDFs, with sites that have saved fine in the past. Even when I try saving webpage WITHOUT snapshot, there are errors! I've tried Chrome, I've tried Edge, I've tried Firefox. And yes I keep checking for updates, none available. When I try to update the extension it just says Updating... without actually updating.
4. Performance - it also takes a long time to display the items in a folder in Zotero after I click on the folder name, sometimes never! It takes forever to search now. Similarly with rightclicking an item, it can be literally minutes before the menu pops up! Overall, Zotero has become much slower to use, although I have 32GB RAM in Windows. And increasingly, I have to close and reopen Zotero several times before it will even display the contents list for a selected folder, it's stuck on Loading items. Sometimes a full restart of Windows 11 helps, but not always, and it's very disruptive to have to keep restarting. The last few months, Zotero has also started crashing and refusing to restart, with Database upgrade error. It takes several attempts over time before it will start. My database is NOT readonly, yet Zotero sometimes thinks it is, then suddenly realises it's OK and starts working properly again!
If I stop it syncing it's better. But on autosync it's terrible, stops responding and won't save properly while it's syncing (errors etc.), and I have to close it, even shut down and restart Windows.
Zotero was perfect initially, but I can no longer justify paying high annual fees for a product that's been getting worse and worse. I don't have the time. I need it to just work. However, thank you for your support over the years.
I've tried clicking the Purge Storage button, please confirm all my previously stored data (which is my personal data under GDPR) will be deleted ASAP from Zotero's systems?
Thanks.
1. I save mainly online PDFs and webpages. This has become more cumbersome over time.
i. Rightclicking on a PDF to Retrieve Metadata - if nothing is found, for a month or so a few years back there was a button to Create Parent Item. This feature was taken away. Clearly the Zotero team decided not to retain it (I asked about that at the time). It was really helpful for me.
ii. Rightclicking on a PDF to Create Parent Item used to be quicker. I now have to enter a DOI or similar (which isn't available for most PDFs I want to save) or else click Manual Entry - extra steps introduced into the process.
iii. Handling of some webpages which only popup a Zotero Item Selector on clicking the Zotero icon - there's NO option to Save to Zotero as Webpage with Snapshot, in those cases.
Unfortunately, there are many webpages where NONE of the items listed in the Item Selector match the article or webpage in question! Example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34285686
This must be due to how the website coded that webpage's metadata, but Zotero doesn't offer users a Save to Zotero as Webpage with Snapshot option there, which would at least address that problem for users.
Similarly, with some webpages there's a long list of items and no Save Webpage with Snapshot option, or any setting to automatically always Select All (I appreciate there's a manual checkbox in the selector, but it gets tedious always having to Select All).
iv. It's hard to save to Zotero from Chrome on an iPad - it used to be easier, plus it's not possible to save to a selected subfolder, only to the top level of my Web Library.
2. Pricing - there's no intermediate tier between 6GB and unlimited.
3. Errors/problems are increasing - often I have to reload or retry several times before it will save or it's completely impossible to save webpages/PDFs, with sites that have saved fine in the past. Even when I try saving webpage WITHOUT snapshot, there are errors! I've tried Chrome, I've tried Edge, I've tried Firefox. And yes I keep checking for updates, none available. When I try to update the extension it just says Updating... without actually updating.
4. Performance - it also takes a long time to display the items in a folder in Zotero after I click on the folder name, sometimes never! It takes forever to search now. Similarly with rightclicking an item, it can be literally minutes before the menu pops up! Overall, Zotero has become much slower to use, although I have 32GB RAM in Windows. And increasingly, I have to close and reopen Zotero several times before it will even display the contents list for a selected folder, it's stuck on Loading items. Sometimes a full restart of Windows 11 helps, but not always, and it's very disruptive to have to keep restarting. The last few months, Zotero has also started crashing and refusing to restart, with Database upgrade error. It takes several attempts over time before it will start. My database is NOT readonly, yet Zotero sometimes thinks it is, then suddenly realises it's OK and starts working properly again!
If I stop it syncing it's better. But on autosync it's terrible, stops responding and won't save properly while it's syncing (errors etc.), and I have to close it, even shut down and restart Windows.
Zotero was perfect initially, but I can no longer justify paying high annual fees for a product that's been getting worse and worse. I don't have the time. I need it to just work. However, thank you for your support over the years.
I've tried clicking the Purge Storage button, please confirm all my previously stored data (which is my personal data under GDPR) will be deleted ASAP from Zotero's systems?
Thanks.
I won't comment on the performance issues since you never reported them here (they're obviously not general issues, though, or there would be many more reports of them), and as I understood your previous post, the additional click for adding parent items manually is your principal deal-breaker anyway, but FWIW: Not sure why you never asked about this -- we've answered this question several times here for others: right-click on the "Save to Zotero" icon and select "Save to Zotero" --> "Save to Zotero (Webpage with Snapshot)" It used to be easier when? Before the iOS app? The iOS app should have massively improved the saving behavior and that's pretty reliably what people are saying, too.