Problem with Microsoft Word 2007 citations

ohnoplus
I am having all sorts of bugs with adding and editing citations in Microsoft word 2007. Randomly when I am editing citations, when I press the OK button, nothing happens. Sometimes I get an error message when I close the window, sometimes I don't (I don't remember what the error message said). Sometimes this fixes itself if I restart firefox and word, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it fixes itself if I restart my computer, sometimes not.
This morning after such a crash, I pushed the update button. Many of the citations in my document were changed to a different citation from my database than the one I originally inserted. I have been putting things back but now zotero has stopped letting me edit things again. These bugs are really problematic because even backing up my database or my document doesn't keep them from being a problem. If the interaction between word and zotero stops working, then getting things up and running is a pain.

Oh, all of this started after I updated to firefox 4 and allowed zotero to install the newest version I think.

Any suggestions as to how I can put an end to this buggyness would be highly appreciated. Thanks.
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  • ohnoplus
    Oh, and here's the error message I get when things stop working:

    Zotero experienced an error updating your document.
    this.namerag[pkey].ikey[ikey] is undefined

    after that error message citations get inserted as {Citation}
    instead of say (Jones et al. 2007)
    thanks again
  • ohnoplus
    Also I am using Zotero 2.1.2
    with Zotero WinWord Integration 3.1b1
  • fbennett
    Do you have any other Firefox extensions installed?
  • Psychophant
    I've been having similar problems. The most often recurring one is that multiple sources from the same year seem to add cummulatively, so that an author with two sources from 2006 is now up to "2006k" in the notes.

    When this happen and I try to update, I get the following message:
    Zotero experienced an error updating your document.
    this.registry[id] is undefined

    Like ohnoplus these problems started when I upgraded to Firefox 4 and the latest Zotero version.
  • Psychophant
    I just tried updating again, just to see what else I could say. The error message now is:

    Zotero experienced an error updating your document.
    this.registry.registry[tainters[pos].id] is undefined
  • fbennett
    This is likely due to a processor bug, which I have just fixed and pushed to a new release (1.0.143). The bug will occur in the current version when uncited items are manually added to the bibliography. If you have added items in this way, and you are experiencing these low-level errors, wait for the next release of Zotero (2.1.5), which should be released soon. There is a very strong chance that Zotero will not work correctly for you until the bug fix is in place.
  • ohnoplus
    fbennett and others
    other firefox extensions I am running are Adblock Plus, FlashGot, Garmin Communicator, a bunch of Java Console, StumbleUpon and User Agent Switcher

    does the fix you submitted then only work if I have version 1 of zotero? if so, I guess I'll wait for 2.1.5

    I'm not sure what you mean about adding united items to the bibliography. I haven't even created a bibliography section for this paper.

    Thanks for your input so far everyone.
  • fbennett
    Very good. I was worried about the processor, but there have been no reported problems; I'm just a bit jittery, it seems.

    Try disabling your other Firefox extensions, and see if that helps. Strange behavior like this can be caused by a conflict with another extension.
  • ohnoplus
    So I'm looking more closely at exactly how the citations are mixed up and I am finding that they are shifted such that the citation given is now the one that was the next citation previously. For instance if I have a sentence that said:
    "Whales sometimes eat catfish (Jones et al. 2006). This finding surprises many people because whales are usually salt water living creatures (Swenson and Michaels 2004) while catfish are fresh water creatures (Polnan et al 2004)."
    It now says:
    "Whales sometimes eat catfish (Swenson and Michaels 2004). This finding surprises many people because whales are usually salt water living creatures (Polnan et al 2004) while catfish are fresh water creatures (Smith 2001)."

    Its as if some index got shifted by one.

    Also, disabling all other Firefox extensions dies nothing. Nor did updating to Zotero 2.1.4
  • fbennett
    Does the shift occur when you run Zotero 2.1.4 against an original copy of the document with other extensions disabled? If so, that's something we need to address.
  • ohnoplus
    I have several copies of the document. One version is "shifted", one version is "broken" and one version is "not yet broken"

    In the shifted version, the citations have moved by one.

    In the "broken" version, I can not add citations. Any new citation simply displays as {Citation}. If press the zotero refresh button this document becomes a shifted document.

    In the "not yet broken" version I am able to add citations and updating causes no problems. However, I think that I have had other occasions of "not yet broken" or "shifted" files becoming "broken" files after I have been working with them for a while.

    As you asked, I have left all extensions disabled.
  • fbennett
    However, I think that I have had other occasions of "not yet broken" or "shifted" files becoming "broken" files after I have been working with them for a while.
    If a copy of this document breaks under 2.1.4 or later with extensions disabled, let us know. Also, if it proves stable and you can identify an extension that triggers the problem, that would be very useful information.
  • ohnoplus
    Ok. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your help.
  • ohnoplus
    Ok. It just happened again. I brought a document to "working" status by clicking on the zotero remove codes button. I then began re-adding citations manually one at a time.

    After a little while of work, I was adding a citation and decided not to add the citation after all so x-ed out of the add citation box. I then got the following error (which I have seen before:

    this.namereg[pkey].[ikey] is undefined

    now when I try to add citations I get the error message

    Zotero experienced an error updating your document
    this.regisry.citationreg.citationByID[c[0]] is undefined

    Hope this information helps. Let me know if there is anything else I can provide.
  • ohnoplus
    More info: Zotero refresh doesn't work.
    I get the message this.namereg[pkey].[ikey] is undefined

    If I click zotero remove codes, the codes seem to get removed but I can't add citations. After clicking the add citations button, the OK button does nothing. xing out closes the window without an error message. I am still able however to add citations to other documents.
  • ohnoplus
    I've been able to get things to mostly work by 1) creating a new document. 2)Adding a few references. 3) Pasting in an old document from which the codes have been removed and then 4) Re inserting citations.

    Mostly things are working
    One strange symptom however is that sometimes when I have track changes activated in word citations get inserted twice. I can stop this by turning track changes off, adding a citation, and then turning track changes on.
  • ohnoplus
    And that happens when I try to insert a citation next to an old citation that is still behaving as a field rather than as text.
  • ohnoplus
    Ah, and then I converted some fields to text using control+shift+F9. Now when I try to insert citations nothing happens when I click the OK button.

    I logged everything since last time I started zotero and submitted that.

    Also if it helps any I am getting the following error log under the error reporting section:
    1599207896

    I'm going to work on migrating to another reference program for now, I need to finish this project, I think but let me know if you get things worked out with zotero.
    -ohnoplus
  • ajlyon
    Track changes occasionally (usually?) wreaks havoc on citations. Don't use it while modifying citations using Zotero.
  • fbennett
    ajlyon nails it. With track changes, a copy of your old fields is preserved inside the document as you edit. The plugin is then unable to correctly interpret the content. For the present, this is a limitation.
  • ohnoplus
    Nope, thats not it. I've stopped tracking changes and recreated the same problem.
    This time I got the this.namereg[pkey].[ikey] is undefined error message when I closed of the insert citations menu
    This time it happened when I tried to edit a citation to turn a single author citation into a multiple author one.
  • adamsmith
    wouldn't it make sense at this point for someone (Frank, Simon?) to take a look at ohnoplus' document? There are so many moving parts here, I feel like this involves too much guessing around.
  • fbennett
    Yes. I don't have Windows access, so Simon would be a better bet. Before going further though ...
    Zotero WinWord Integration 3.1b1
    ... is that an outdated version of the plugin?
  • dstillman
    We put out a 3.1 yesterday.
  • ohnoplus
    Thanks for your help everyone. So far things seem to be working with the new 3.1. I'll post again if that changes.
  • James_Woodcock
    Hi,
    I have just started using zotero and I am getting the problem described above,

    "Zotero experienced an error updating your document.
    this.namerag[pkey].ikey[ikey] is undefined

    after that error message citations get inserted as {Citation} "

    I think I am running latest version (only installed today) I am using office 2010. I have disabled adblock and removed track changes. Any suggestions? Most of my Zotero library came from importing from Endnote generated text file.
  • Simon
    Are you running Zotero 2.1.6? Can you generate a report ID?
  • James_Woodcock
    I am now running 2.1.6 ,I deleted a couple of references from the document that looked particularly problematic, and Microsoft did some updating of its own.

    It is now working again :) but I will let you know what happens when I try and reinsert the references and if there is an error I will generate a report ID.
  • me23rose
    I believe I'm getting similar errors. I added a new journal article to my library and attempted to insert a multiple works citation. The first (new) citation is correct, but for some reason my second citation has changed and is incorrect.

    (Solorzano, 2007b; Yosso et al., 2004d)

    The Solorzano citation is the second 2007 entry so the "b" is correct. The second set of authors didn't change and so should not have the "d" (or a, b, or c as it's a unique set of authors).

    I tried to use the Refresh Zotero citations button in the plugin but received the following error:

    Zotero experienced an error updating your document. this.registry.registry[tainters[pos].id] id undefined


    Report ID 458992707

    also-I am running version 2.1.6 and Word plugin 3.1
  • fbennett
    I've spotted a clear bug in the processor code that is almost certainly the cause of this. I'll get out a revised processor release soon, which should become available in the next Zotero release.
This discussion has been closed.