Zotero freezes when editing entries, adding and indexing PDFs

rickus · May 11, 2011

Hi guys,

I really like Zotero, but it has always been a bit unstable on my computer. After I updated to Firefox 4 things got a bit annoying.

Zotero freezes for half a minute to a minute, and sometimes crashes, when I do the following things:
- opening it from the Firefox Add-on bar
- add a PDF to an entry
- index a PDF file
- add information to certain fields and then press another field

My system:
Win 7
Firefox 4.0.1
Zotero 2.1.6 with OpenOffice and WinWord integration

Error report ID: 614311903

dstillman · May 11, 2011

If you have a large library, it may just be trying to auto-sync. Don't interrupt it—just let it finish and the problem should go away.

dstillman · May 11, 2011

And can easily see whether syncing is the issue by temporarily disabling auto-sync in the Sync pane of the Zotero preferences.

rickus · May 11, 2011

Hi Dan,

I disabled autosync a long time ago, because, as you say, syncing takes to long when you have a large library.

dstillman · May 12, 2011

rickus: For adding PDFs, you can also disable PDF indexing to see if that's the problem. Set the max values to 0 in the Search pane of the Zotero prefs.

And I didn't say that syncing takes too long with a large library. Only the initial sync should take some time. After that syncs should be instantaneous.