Error inserting citation after creating

emekaene

Original zotero version: 6.0.37
Upgraded Zotero version: 7.0.15
Word version: Word for Mac Version 16.95.4 (25040241)
MacBook Pro 14-inch, Nov 2023
Chip Apple M3 Pro
Memory 18 GB
macOS Sonoma 14.5
Document type: Book manuscript
Number of pages (not including bibliography): 301
Zotero error message(s): Frozen Zotero red citation insertion bar. When I exit Zotero, I get the following message. "Zotero Integration Error
Zotero experienced an error updating your document..."

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Hi everyone
I successfully generated and inserted a bibliography using my library from Zotero 6.0.37 in Word.
While reviewing the document, I decided to add 2 new citations to the document. After inserting, I get a frozen red bar and nothing happens.
I have done the following:
- Restarted both Word and Zotero
- Upgraded Zotero to 7.0.15
- saved the document under a different name and deleted the bibliography
- tried to insert a citation into a blank document - and it works.
- tried inserting a different citation that I had used in the document
I received the same error.
I have searched through the troubleshooting steps suggested by Zotero support.
Am I missing something?

aborel

How long did you wait when Zotero felt frozen? The integration with Word for Mac can be **really** slow compared with all other OS/word processor combinations. You have a long document, it will certainly take several minutes or longer to update your bibliography.

emekaene

Thanks aborel
I waited more than 10 minutes. Did not really time it, though.

emekaene

@aborel
Left it going for 2 whole hours. Lo and behold, the citation just popped up in the Word document with dashed lines under the text. But it's there.
Now trying to regenerate the bibliography and it seems to be taking forever.
I just wonder why there is no bar or progressive dots in Zotero that indicate that something is happening, the same way you know if software is installing or a document is downloading. I am tempted to shut down the process and start the troubleshooting all over again.
Thanks for your advice.

emekaene

I resolved it manually—by highlighting the citations directly in the Zotero library, right-clicking, and creating the bibliography, which I pasted into the Word document. Done and dusted. I will sort out the formatting, etc., and remove duplications manually.

aborel

Glad to read that you got through the process!
Some progress information would be nice indeed, although the word processor plugin will work much faster in all other cases. The developers have an ongoing discussion with Microsoft to improve the performance with Word for Mac (the problem being mostly on the Word side), and reportedly that discussion is constructive - but I don't think we have seen any result yet.