"Zotero Cannot Insert Fields Here" Error

TravisR

I'm running


OSX 10.6.7

Zotero 2.1.6

Firefox 4.0.1

Zotero MacWord Integration 3.1.2

Word for Mac 2008 12.2.9

I just tried to use Zotero for the first time since I updated to FF4 and Zotero 2.1 and I get the above error in both new (blank) and old documents. When I refresh in an old document, I get the following:

Zotero experienced an error updating your document.

     COMMAND: app(u'/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Microsoft Word.app/').active_document.get_story_range (story_type=k.footnotes_story)

Can someone please help me? I cannot do anything with my document at the moment.

TravisR

I decided to try uninstalling everything and using the Standalone Alpha. Same problem.

Report ID: 1718718486

TravisR

Report ID: 473195948

adamsmith

have you tried with different citation styles? Or can't you even get to the point where you select citation styles?
Generally the standalone version is worse for troubleshooting and is unlikely to fix any error you encounter - it's based on a less recent version of Zotero 2.1 which includes errors since fixed in 2.1.

TravisR

thanks for the response. in old documents, the error comes up before I can switch to another style. in new documents, it doesn't matter what style I choose (I've been choosing randomly for a while now just to see)

TravisR

Report ID: 1638349781

I've now uninstalled Standalone Alpha, uninstalled the Chrome Extension, Reinstalled Zotero 2.1.6 and MacWord Integration 3.1.2. I even tried a (standard) citation style I know I've never tried before now on a blank document. Same issues.

adamsmith

very odd - I don't think I've ever seen this reported - maybe Dan can see something more helpful in an error report...

TravisR

I hope so. Clearly I need some help here.

TravisR

Report ID: 64483191

This time I uninstalled Zotero, Firefox, and Microsoft Office, and reinstalled everything fresh. Still happened first time out on a blank new document.

TravisR

for posterity: I managed to fix it. This time when I uninstalled everything, I searched for and deleted everything with a com.microsoft.* filename in order to get an entirely clean install of Word. I did the same for anything containing mozilla, firefox, or zotero. After that, I reinstalled everything and it all worked as expected.

irina_572

Hi TravisR

I seem to be experiencing the same problem, I just failed to describe it as well as you have (http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/19792/report-id-1830178841/). I haven't realised that this may be caused by FF4, I thought that this was caused by upgrading to Lion from Snow Leopard. I found your post by googling for the error message that I get - which is the same one you've been getting:

COMMAND: app(u'/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Microsoft Word.app/').active_document.get_story_range(story_type=k.footnotes_story)

(Report ID 1830178841)

Could you please explain in more detail how you managed to solve the problem so I can try and do the same?

TravisR

Sure.

1. Backup your database, then maybe email the backup file to yourself just for good measure.
2. Uninstall Office and Firefox.
3. Then open a finder window and type in the search box, then delete what you typed (this just happens to be the easiest way to get to the advanced search options).
4. Below the search box you will see a "save" button and a +. Click +
5. Change "kind" to "filename"
6. Change "matches" to "begins with"
7. Type "com.microsoft" into the adjacent box.
   You should now have a list of every Microsoft file on the machine (I recommend list view), which since you have uninstalled Office, should be a fairly small number. I don't know how this will react to multiple user accounts that have Office installed on them.
8. Select any *.plist file for Word or Office and drag them to the Trash (you might do this with searches for Zotero and Firefox files, too, but I don't think that I had to do that).
9. Reinstall everything and make sure it is working.
10. Import your database into Zotero and be back to work, probably.

That is what I did, at least. Good luck.

irina_572

Thank you! I will give it a try.