Connector Not Communicating with Zotero App

vjardin2
Hi Zotero team,

I'm having an issue where the Zotero Connector isn’t communicating with the desktop app on macOS, despite trying all troubleshooting steps from the official guide.

SYSTEM INFO
- macOS version: 14.7.3 (Sonoma)
- Zotero version: 7.0.15 (x64)
- Browsers tested: Arc, Chrome
- Connector behavior: Cannot detect the Zotero desktop app.
- Firewall: macOS Firewall is OFF during testing
- No third-party antivirus or VPN running

WHAT I'VE TRIED
- Verified that http://127.0.0.1:23119/connector/ping fails to load in browsers
- Verified through Terminal that the local server is running and listening on the correct port
- Tried different browsers
- Tried disabling all browser extensions except Zotero Connector
- Reinstalled Zotero and the connector

At this point, I’m not sure what else could be preventing the browser from reaching Zotero’s local server, even though it’s clearly running.

Any help would be much appreciated!
  • dstillman
    edited 9 days ago
    I assume you've tried restarting your computer?

    You can also try restarting Zotero in Troubleshooting Mode (Help → "Restart in Troubleshooting Mode…”), which temporarily disables all plugins.

    If you run curl -v http://127.0.0.1:23119/connector/ping from Terminal, what do you see?

    Are you connecting to the internet through a proxy server?
  • vjardin2
    Thank you for your quick response!

    I've tried restarting my computer, restarting Zotero in Troubleshooting Mode, I'm not connected to the internet through a proxy server, and when I run that in Terminal, this is what I see.

    * Trying 127.0.0.1:23119...
    * Connected to 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1) port 23119
    > GET /connector/ping HTTP/1.1
    > Host: 127.0.0.1:23119
    > User-Agent: curl/8.7.1
    > Accept: */*
    >
    * Request completely sent off
    * HTTP 1.0, assume close after body
    < HTTP/1.0 200 OK
    < X-Zotero-Version: 7.0.15
    < X-Zotero-Connector-API-Version: 2
    < Content-Type: text/html
    <
    * Closing connection
    <!DOCTYPE html>Zotero is running%


    Any other suggestions to try before we switch to a different reference management software?

    Thank you!
  • dstillman
    (It's not really necessary to include a threat to switch to other software while we're actively troubleshooting this with you.)

    So the app is working fine — you can connect to it in the terminal. That means the problem is in your browser(s), or your browser is using a different network/proxy configuration than command-line apps.

    What exactly do you see when you try to load http://127.0.0.1:23119/connector/ping from your browser while Zotero is running? Do you see the same in Safari?

    Can you provide a Report ID from the Zotero Connector after reproducing this?
  • vjardin2
    My sincere apologies, I didn't intend to threaten. I truly appreciate your help, especially with all of your quick responses. We're just past our deadline for establishing our official reference management system, so we will need to figure something else out if we can't get Zotero to work. Regardless, I should have worded that better and I really appreciate all your help.

    When I load that link from my browser (Arc), it says "Zotero is running." Same thing on Safari and Chrome.

    Chrome Report ID: 1579323967

    Arc Report ID: 1158728913

    I am able to save pages to Zotero. The issue happens when I click the Zotero button in Google Docs. When using Arc or Chrome, the browser either crashes entirely or I get the "Is Zotero Running?" popup, after which, the browser tends to freeze.

    Just now, I clicked the Zotero button on Google Docs using Safari, and for the first time I didn't get the popup asking if Zotero was running. It did, however, freeze Zotero—the red bar popped up but without any search functionality and the Zotero app itself froze. After restarting the Zotero app, I finally got everything to work on Safari, but it still isn't working on Arc or Chrome.

    Thank you!
  • dstillman
    edited 6 days ago
    When I load that link from my browser (Arc), it says "Zotero is running." Same thing on Safari and Chrome.
    Oh, but you said originally that you "Verified that http://127.0.0.1:23119/connector/ping fails to load in browsers". There's no need to talk about the terminal if you can load the URL in the browser.

    So this is only when trying to cite in Google Docs?

    Can you provide a Debug ID from the Zotero Connector for reloading Google Docs and clicking Add/Edit Citation?
  • vjardin2
    Sorry for the confusion, I obviously have no idea what I'm doing, so I appreciate your help.

    I haven't tried it in other platforms like Word, but yes, the issue happens when trying to add a citation in Google Docs.

    The Debug ID is D1353467627.

    Thank you so much!
  • adomasven
    Your debug ID shows that your browser (Chrome, in this case) has no issue communicating with Zotero. However, it seems that a citation dialog is already open. You should restart Zotero, and try again in Word or Google Docs.

    Otherwise, if you're still having problems, step back a bit, read Reporting Problems, and provide one specific thing that doesn't work for you with steps to reproduce, what you expect and what actually happens. If there are multiple issues, let's start with one, address that, and then we can see if there is still something else.
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