Word cursor flashing manically, errors when trying to update citations

sicahjes

I have been experiencing an issue with Word again., where the cursor is rapidly flashing between an arrow and text select, which is quite distracting.

It was also throwing up a lot of errors when I added a new citation, so I went through the troubleshooting.

I've had tracked changes on in the document (which is essential) but have turned it off to troubleshoot. After doing the below steps, I thought I was able to isolate the issue as related to the field codes displaying instead of formatted citations. However, I just opened a version of the file that has field codes displayed and the flashing is occurring... so I'm at a complete loss.

Debug ID: D1716145979
Troubleshooting, I have:

- Changed from Beta to stable
- Turned off automatic citation updates
- Restarted Word, Zotero, and my machine.
- Turned off tracked changes
- Made sure “Typing replaces selected text” was checked.
- Copied all contents into a new document, issue persists.
- Duplicated file, issue persists.
- Changed from Chicago 17 (Note) to app 7, issue persists.
- tried changing back from APA 7 to Chicago, returned "Zotero experienced an error updating your document" error
- Deleted the bibliography
- Pressed Alt/Option-F9 and Alt/Option-Fn-F9 to display field codes, it did not work.
- Isolate the problem, this is inconsistent. In one copy of the file I managed to reduce the citations down and it stopped once I was left with three citations, but when I tried again in a new file to confirm I could not duplicate the 'fix'.

I would be most grateful for a resolution, I can't leave the field codes on, there's so much gibberish.

adomasven

Could you take a screen recording of the issue that you are seeing?

For the record, you should never work with field code display enabled. We have various instructions around that since users sometimes accidentally enable field code display and are confused about that.

We're unlikely to be able to help you if you cannot reproduce this in a small snippet of a document, and especially if there are unmerged tracked changes in this document.

sicahjes

I'm pretty confident the issue is related to tracked changes... which is a real bummer as I need them on (so my supervisor can see the revisions). Edit: I was wrong... the flashing is back in both docs, but have left below unchanged so you can see events.

This is the original file, this flashing is at about 50% the rate of yesterday (so progress, I guess).

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u1502721/uvx9b99cqag2x1wvyipi.gif

This is in another version of the same file, the only difference is I've made a style adjustment and the tracked changes are off.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u1502721/dufk3rksaay0onrisnhf.gif

In order to get the flashing to stop, I need to turn TT off, save the file and then quit / reopen it. It's not until after restarting the file that the flashing will stop. I figured this out just now by turning the tracked changes back on for the second file.

I guess we're at the limits of what you can do, as trying to get the issue to appear in a small snippet of a document with unaccepted tracked changes isn't a reproduction of my experience. However, perhaps this information will prove useful somehow.

I must admit... I'm nervous about compiling the thesis, I still have it broken out into a file per chapter. Fingers crossed and positive thoughts!

adomasven

Ok. This flashing is happening because Zotero is updating your document. When you press Refresh, or change the citation style in the document preferences, you will see this "flashing" as Zotero updates the document. Unfortunately we don't display a progress window while updating the document due to technical difficulties on macOS, but we'll see if we may be able to do better in Zotero 7.

Note that you should generally avoid editing your document when Zotero is running a refresh or you're risking corruption.

sicahjes

Thanks, for the clarity on the flashing. Unfortunately, my issues are bigger than this, it's just a symptom I think. It seems that Zotero is struggling to handle large documents.

Yesterday, I needed to combine my chapters to submit my draft thesis to my panel, and Zotero simply broke. It would not refresh or let me insert a new citation. I ended up having to submit a document with citations that were out of date / incomplete (I cannot stress how sub-optimal this is). It would allow me to insert a bibliography, thankfully (I did not insert this before refreshing) but I couldn't update any citations.

It would take me multiple restarts before I could get the document preference dialogue to open. Instead, the main Zotero pane would come to the front (either from a minimised state, or from behind another window). This was on a different machine to the one I was experiencing the above issues on (but it did include the same document, plus others).

Just now, I went back into this document and hit refresh. In approx. 10mins it got through 25 pages. At one point, the Output had the error (1)(+0000139): Error: The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error -1708.), and it appears to have stopped (although, no error notice has come up in Word: D834188673).

Now it is cycling through:
[unrelated messages removed — D.S.]

My Word document also opens a 'save as' dialogue for the Word doc, unprompted.

Are we meant to use a specific compile process when compiling chapters in Word? I need to be able to compile my thesis.

dstillman

You shouldn't get an error, but Mac Word integration is just very slow currently for technical reasons, and refreshing a very large document can take a long time — potentially hours. Your debug output shows an ongoing operation (e.g., "(3)(+0000002): Integration: Adding citationID rSQNWP6E"). So you might just need to wait longer.

Alternatively, if you're able to compile the final version on Windows (either on a Windows computer or in a Windows 11 ARM VM on your Mac using something like Parallels), that would be another option.

(We're working with Microsoft on Word changes that will let us create a much faster version for Word for Mac and Word for the web.)

sicahjes

It stopped processing, nothing was happening in the output.

I don't have access to a Windows computer, do you have an ETA on the fix (praying this is before I submit)?

adomasven

We don't have an ETA for the updated Word plugin, but it's unlikely to be within the next month. Your best bet for the refresh on a big doc to work is to make sure you only have one Word document open, which is the document you are refreshing and have restarted Zotero before that. If it still doesn't work, provide a Debug ID for an attempt to refresh and we may be able to help troubleshoot.

sicahjes

Has the Word plugin been updated? I'm still having these issues, I ended up submitting a thesis with underlines in the citations because I just could not get this to work properly. I'd really love to be able to edit the file and put this behind me, but it is so unstable I can't get it done.

I don't have auto updates turned on. I don't use Zotero with tracked changes on (which is a huge pain) and yet it is so buggy. Now, it does this weird thing where it might show the citation input bar and then the next time the screen behaves as though it (or preferences etc) has been initiated (word goes to background) but there is no dialogue. Then, whenever I close the document I get the "Zotero experienced an error updating your document" message.

I cannot manually replace 1,214 footnotes and the 600+ sources in the bibliography manually. I need Zotero to work.

adomasven

You might benefit from improvements added to Zotero Beta, specifically a progress bar is now displayed while the document is being refreshed by Zotero.

Regarding underlining, if you refresh and some of your citations stay underlined, it means you manually edited them, and when Zotero asked whether you wanted to keep your changes, you said "Yes". To have them start updating again, you will need to put your cursor in them and press Add/Edit Citation.

Generally, we will help you troubleshoot any problems or fix them if they are something that we can techincally fix, but now you are mentioning things that you have not discussed previously.

For any operation that is causing you issues that you want us to help with, you should restart Zotero and provide a Debug ID for that specific operation, and we may be able to help you with it. You should also provide specific problem description and describe what you did and what happened. Feel free to create new threads on this forum for each separate issue.

sicahjes

Thank you for the response. I'll try Beta and see if that fixes things for me.

For clarity, the footnotes underline when I have auto-updates turned off. As I can't get the file to update they stay that way.

adomasven

The underline from inserted citations will be removed when you press Refresh in the Zotero tab. The underline is there to remind you that those citations have not been updated according to thoe whole of your document, and appropriate formatting applied.

sicahjes

Sorry if it seemed like I was querying that. I know it's expected behaviour, I just can't remove it when the doc won't Refresh won't work. I've just installed Beta and am attempting a Refresh on a copied doc. Fingers crossed it works, as I need to send through the final doc today! :-)

The progress bar is a great addition (although, it has been running for 23mins so far and bar is showing zero progress).

adomasven

You may use Zotero Help -> Debug Output Logging -> View Output to see whether Zotero is processing your document in the background. The progress bar is static, but if it's present, it means Zotero is working on your document.