Chicago 18th Ed. (notes&bib) fails to export if URL field is empty

sarahdcalhoun

I've been having trouble with CMOS 18 notes & bib recently. Yesterday I was able to pin down the problem:

1. I had my Export > Quick Copy style set to CMOS 18 (notes&bib) https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=id:chicago-notes-bibliography

2. I selected items (all item types) that had no content in the URL field

3. When I EITHER drag & dropped citations to create a manual bibliography; OR right click Create Bibliography from Item, it was a null paste into a Google Doc. If I put some dummy text in the field ("test") the full citation would paste in with no issues.

4. I tried this through the Google Doc plugin too by adding a footnote for a single item with no URL. When I went to create a bibliography, I got a popup error: "Zotero experienced an error updating your document. Would you like to view troubleshooting instructions?" I clicked yes, and it brought me here: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/debugging_broken_documents

5. I tried this in Word, and got very similar results: null paste for quick copy. After I added a footnote for an item with no URL, it did at least not error out with the bibliography, but also still didn't create a bibliography with the URL-less item.

I tried debugging:
From Zotero: D598663439
From Chrome browser: D1920023190

It seems to me like there's a problem somewhere in the CSL around that URL field. In the meantime, I've reverted to CMOS 17 (notes&bib), which still works fine.

Help?

adamsmith

I can't replicate this. Can you start by confirming that you're either on Zotero 9.0.5 or on the current beta (if so, please note that). Then, isolate the issue to a single affected item (even if it occurs more broadly), export that item to CSL JSON and paste that here (you can open the JSON file with any text editor, then select all --> copy --> paste)

sarahdcalhoun

I'm on Zotero 9.0.4, and when I Check for Updates, it says no updates are found. (I'm on Mac Tahoe 26.5.1 (25F80)).

Incidentally, it seems that books are working more often? Presentations seem to more consistently give me this problem. Also if something has a doi, that also seems to make things work ok.

Here's the CSL JSON from a cobbled-together sample item that isn't working for me:

[
{
"id": "http://zotero.org/users/166946/items/FGPEWU9F",
"type": "speech",
"abstract": "Pali literature : a 3-in-1 publication | WorldCat.org",
"event-place": "Northfield, MN",
"genre": "LTC talk",
"language": "en",
"title": "Pali literature : a 3-in-1 publication",
"title-short": "Pali literature",
"author": [
{
"family": "Malalasekera",
"given": "G. P."
}
],
"accessed": {
"date-parts": [
[
"2026",
6,
26
]
]
},
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
"2014"
]
]
}
}
]

adamsmith

Chicago 18 has a number of stipulations about items that should only be listed in notes, not the bibliography. That includes unpublished lectures, e.g. (what's the point of having them in a bibliography if no one can consult them -- that's at least the logic here). That logic is implemented in the style and that's what you're seeing here. The reason this works once items have URL or DOI is that they're then considere public/published and should be cited in both notes and bibliography.

The fact that Zotero throws an error in Google Docs is a minor bug -- the error will only occur when the bibliography is entirely empty, which would presumably be quite rare, but it should fail more gracefully