Zotero deletes my whole document

Gavin Koh · February 10, 2011

Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Word:Mac 2011, Zotero 2.0.9

I can't replicate the problem consistently, but sometimes when I add a citation, Word and Firefox are both busy for about 5 minutes and then suddenly Zotero starts deleting my entire document, starting from the insertion point and then scrolling round to the beginning until the whole document is deleted.
Command + Z doesn't help! I have to go back to a previously saved version.

Gavin Koh · February 10, 2011

After inserting the citation, Word seizes up and a little window keeps flashing (for just a millisecond each time):
"Word is converting tmp8cXd.rtf
Press Command + , to Cancel."

I can stop Zotero from wiping the document by pressing Command + ,
I then get the error message:

"Zotero experienced an error updating your document.

COMMAND: app(u'Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft Word.app').active_document.fields[317].result_range.content.set('')"

By the way…why does Zotero use "Command + ,"? This is also the default keyboard shortcut for application preferences.

Gavin Koh · February 10, 2011

Right. More to report.
Zotero is not actually deleting my document. It is writing over every character in the document with "[space] [space] [space]..." or "***..." or "[CR] [CR] [CR]..." or some other random character.

Simon · February 10, 2011

Can you make a copy of the document, attempt to reproduce this, let Zotero finish running, and then email the file to support@zot...org? We've never heard of this happening before.

For what it's worth, the Cancel keyboard shortcut is Microsoft's doing. Not sure why it's Cmd+, instead of Cmd+.

staceyscott · October 18, 2012

I had the same thing happen to me. Any resolution of this?

adamsmith · October 18, 2012

when you say "same thing" - do you actually get the exact same error messages and symptoms, or just broadly speaking "Zotero deletes my whole document"? If the latter, start a new thread, provide as much detail as possible.
If you're really seeing exactly the same issue, send the document to the e-mail as directed by Simon above, referencing this thread.

Simon · October 18, 2012

I think the original issue here was this, which is actually a bug in Word that can also be triggered without Zotero. If you're experiencing it, upgrade to the latest version of Word 2011, which might be fixed.