Slow citing in Word for Mac

adomasven

This discussion was created from comments split from: Zotero impossibly slow/buggy with Word for Mac.

drmabu

I have also created a new user account. As the word document gets a lit bit longer, the same delay occurs, even if there are only a few citations

drmabu

Is this may be only to a new AppleScript bridge in MacOS 26?

adomasven

See Reporting Problems. Provide steps of what you're doing.

drmabu

Configuration. MacMini M4Pro and Mac airbook M1 with latest MacOS 26, latest version of MS Office and zotero

Mainly the same issue reported In the corresponding threat, in particularly:

1. occured after updating to MacOS 26.1
2. opening zotero and word as normal
3. Start with "Addd/editing citation"
4. zotero is responding normally showing the window to find and choose an entry
5. After choosing the entry and cling the "ok"-Button, the red framed window stays still for prox. 30 sec
6. Then in final stage a progress bar is shown for an other 5 secs
7. Zitation is set into the word document properly

Things tried out:
1) reseting the security infrastructure of Mac OS, so that the access to zotero, word must be allowed again -> no change
2) coping the content of word document into a new document -> no change
3) trying a new empty document -> the response time is shorter of cause, but a delay is still seen
4) Testing a new user account -> delay is still seen.
5) Problems also seen on my second Mac, Air M1

I hope this helps to locate the bug and to provide a proper solution.
Interessing ChatGPT which guided me to finding a work around finnaly suggested, that the problem is caused by the new security infrastructure in MacOS 26 causing a lot or recurring security checks for each zotero entry

Thanks for your work for open source software

adomasven

Submit a Debug ID for a slow operation.

Are you saying that working on the same document (or documents of the same length, with similar number of citations and citation styles) it wasn't as slow prior to MacOS 26.1?

drmabu

Yes as I working with the previous version everything was ok. Then I switched to 26.01 and then very quickly to 26.1 without using zotero in between. After I came back to use it again, the delay occurred

adomasven

We've done some testing internally and we may be seeing something like this too, approximately a 2x difference in our testing, although not on the same machine, so the results are not conclusive. Apple updates have slowed the Zotero Word plugin in the past, and later fixed it, so it's possible that macOS updates are at fault here.

Submit a Debug ID for a slow operation and we can see if it's anomalous.

drmabu

The debug file using /Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/zotero -ZoteroDebugText> ~/Desktop/zotero-debug.txt is empty
In safari I can see "Preference item by right click, but I get no response clicking it

adomasven

Follow the standard debug logging procedure at the top of the page, the one under the label Zotero

drmabu

D813638833
I did this in a new document, delay was short but was visible

drmabu

Shoul I also try Zotero 8 beta? Gretings thanks for your help. Martin

adomasven

The debug log you've submited doesn't show a slowness that's not ordinary. It could be a little faster, and that's Apple's or Microsoft's fault, we are just using the tools they have provided for plugin developers, so we can only be as fast as their tools.

You should submit a Debug ID for an insertion into your main document and we can tell if that's uncommonly slow, but otherwise there's not much to do. We recommend disabling Automatic Citation Updates in Zotero tab Document Preferences for bigger documents where citing speed becomes an issue.

drmabu

Hallo, i produce an other log with D865488959 showing that zotereo is rennin to all my citations (getText).
Note: I updated to the latest version of word (mac App Store), the delay is still visible!
Thanks for your support

drmabu

I run another test with the automatic updated references set off in document preferences in the word -zotero connector
D1856728288
No difference in performance
Thanks again

adomasven

When you restart Zotero, the first insertion of citation into a document with automatic citation updates is going to be slow, but subsequent citations will be fast, untill you restart Zotero. This is the intended behaviour.

drmabu

I testet again, inserting about 5 new citations, but I was able do see a speed up after the first insertion.

aborel

"This is the intended behaviour": maybe "expected behaviour" would be a better choice of words? No one really wants the 1st citation to be slow, it's just the best performance one can obtain with Word for Mac until, maybe, just maybe, Microsoft fixes the critical components that prevent an improvement that many people would enjoy :-)