Zotero could not find a running Word instance error: report ID 693074511

Hi, I am having trouble with the Word-plugin and I can't figure out why.

The problem only occurs after saving, closing and reopening a document. It is perfectly possible to create a new word-document and add citations. After closing and reopening the document however, when trying to add a citation, I get a 'Zotero integration error: Zotero could not find a running Word instance'.

Possibly irrelevant: I have obviously followed all the steps suggested in the “Could not find a running Word instance” troubleshooting instructions and worked through the "Troubleshooting Errors in Word Processor Documents" several times, but the error keeps coming up day after day (from somewhere around the beginning of last week, I suppose).

Both my Zotero (7.0.24 (64-bit)) and Word (Microsoft® Word 2021 MSO (Version 2508 Build 16.0.19127.20082) 64-bit ) version seem to be up to date.

It would be very helpful if anyone could point me in the direction of solving this problem.

  • Is the document saved to OneDrive?

    Does it happen if you save the document to the local disk instead?
  • Thank you for your help.
    I always use local files to work with, everything is saved to my hard drive and not to OneDrive. To provide a specific answer to your last question: yes, it happens when I save the documents to the local disk. Both newly created documents provide the error (after saving, closing and reopening), as well as already existing documents.

    possibly helpful: I've noticed that new documents also cause the error when text is pasted from another word document. (not when copying text from notepad or libre office).
  • *addition for the 'possibly helpful' part: with 'new document' I mean a document that is just created (before saving, closing and reopening).
  • Could you save a new empty document and then provide a Debug ID from Zotero for an attempt to insert a citation into it?
  • Yes,
    this is the debug ID: D2094733026
  • Does it work if you save the documents somewhere on your C disk?
  • Sadly, that doesn't work either.
  • It seems that your version of Word is a from Word Current Channel Preview, which includes updates that may be unstable. You should switch to the current stable channel of Word and then make sure you are running the latest version.
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