Zotero Connector - Google Scholar Behaviour - Opening Blank Tab

andee8
I'm seeing something odd with the Connector (5.0.164) -

When trying to export a citation (RIS) from Google Scholar or Summon, I get a blank popup page whose tab says "Zotero - Confirm Import". The URL displayed in that page is similar to the following: extension://nmhdhpibnnopknkmonacoephklnflpho/confirm/confirm.html#importContent=https://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar.enw?q=info:JO7BwNxtzNgJ:schol...

The behaviour only happens when I choose the Endnote or RefMan styles. The citation does eventually download, but the blank Zotero page remains.
  • andee8
    Is there any way to turn off the Connector from interacting with the citation exports when I don't want it to? As a librarian I use several citation managers, and I don't want a page coming up for every export. We also manage the add-on organizationally, and we don't have a way to turn it off (except to tell people to use InPrivate tab in their browser). This seems like a new problem with a recent update.
  • dstillman
    This is a bug in 5.0.164. It will be fixed in 5.0.165 once Google approves it, which should be within the next day. Thanks for reporting.
  • dstillman
    edited May 2, 2025
    To clarify, the blank tab coming up is a bug that will be fixed in 5.0.165. After the fix, if a website properly serves RIS/BibTeX/Refer data, the Zotero Connector will prompt you whether to import it, and clicking Cancel will cause the download to proceed normally. There's also a checkbox to avoid the prompt and import the data automatically going forward.

    This feature has been available in the Zotero Connector for years, but had to be removed in Chrome last year after some technical changes by Google. We've finally been able to restore it after some additional technical changes in Chrome. The blank tab is just a bug in the restored functionality.

    There's also supposed to be a "Import BibTeX/RIS/Refer files into Zotero" checkbox in the General pane of the Zotero Connector preferences that lets you disable this import feature altogether, but we removed that for Chrome while the feature was unavailable. We'll add that back for 5.0.166.

    As always, the standard way of importing into Zotero on a supported site (e.g., Google Scholar) is to use the Save to Zotero button. This feature just allows for easier metadata importing on the rare site that serves these metadata files properly but isn't otherwise supported by Zotero.
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