Refresh bibliography greyed out - won't refresh

Unconfirmedsasquatch

Hi. I'm using Zotero 2.1.8 with Openoffice 3.3.0, and firefox 5.0.1, on a Mac with OSX 10.6.7. I have an open office writer document that was updating the bibliography automatically (wonderful!) when I added new citations. Now, the new citations appear with a grey background and the bibliography is not updating. Clicking on 'refresh' doesn't work. The button is greyed out and doesn't do anything. Trying to export a new bibliography from the center Zotero column doesn't alphabetize the references, it puts them in a sequential order based on when they were added to the library.

I just want to be able to update the bibliography, or create one alphabetized one from my collection when I'm done. This document will have lots of references, so any help is greatly appreciated.

P.S. All the problems started after I clicked 'add citation' multiple times, not noticing
the citation window had opened up behind the word processor window. There was a long error message, since deleted. I've restarted the computer several times and re-installed zotero.

adamsmith

How about in a new document? Do things still work correctly?

Unconfirmedsasquatch

In a new document the in-text citations appear correctly [although against
a grey background I can't seem to remove]. The bibliography doesn't update in
new documents, either.

Also, when I try to export the new bibliography entries from the zotero window
to the clipboard and paste them into the document, the formatting preferences
are set the same (Harvard) in both zotero and openoffice but the new references
exported from the zotero window are formatted differently, so they aren't usable
without manually re-formatting each one.

adamsmith

They grey shadow is a distraction - it's there by design (I don't know why it wasn't before), it won't print and you can turn it of somewhere in Ooo tools-->options menu (highlight reference marks or so).

Try reinstalling the citation style you're using fromthe repository. Also, see if you can create an error report in Zotero and post the ID here:
http://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_bugs

Unconfirmedsasquatch

Success, of a sort!

I re-installed the citation styles [Firefox: -> Tools -> Add-ons -> Zotero Openoffice.org integration 3.5a2 -> Preferences -> Cite -> Get additional styles].

This step opened zotero.org/styles, which has a lot more options for citation styles.
Hopefully the right one is in there somewhere, I'm still looking through them. [Harvard style has about 20 variations].

Also, in Openoffice under Openoffice -> [Zotero command] Set Document Preferences,
I switched 'format as' from Reference Marks to Bookmarks. Right after doing that,
the grey boxes behind the new citations disappeared and the bibliography started
being updated automatically, with citations added in alphabetical order, as soon as I added an in-text citation.

I reported the error as Error ID: 1040421678

This is the only error code that refers to Zotero, and this error appeared several times:


[JavaScript Error: "this._editor is undefined" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/bindings/styled-textbox.xml" line: 185}]

The original error may be different, as there were several system re-starts between the initial problem and the fix.

Thanks for the help.

adamsmith

ok - that's not really satisfactory - there a a number of reasons why using reference marks is preferable - they're more stable, they also work for note-based styles like Chicago - so I'd really try to see if we can get this fixed more broadly.

Maybe Simon has a guess what to troubleshoot next -
I guess you could try reinstalling the Ooo components for Zotero (Firefox: -> Tools -> Add-ons -> Zotero Openoffice.org integration 3.5a2 --> reinstall Open Office components). Worst case something is wrong with the Ooo installation and that needs to be re-installed, but hold off on that.

Unconfirmedsasquatch

I re-installed the open office integration tool and switched back to reference marks.

The good news is the update feature is back working again, so the bibliography is being updated automatically.

I may need to go back and forth from Openoffice to Word versions to edit this, though, as I'm creating it in Openoffice and submitting it as a .doc, so the fact that reference marks won't allow Zotero to update the bibliography in later versions makes me think bookmarks may be more useful. I just don't want to end up in a situation where I have to use Word to make substantial changes without being able to use Zotero to keep the bibliography updated. I'm keeping reference marks for now, though.

adamsmith

you should be able to switch to bookmarks before saving as .doc, but yes, if you're going to work with Word, too, bookmarks are the way to go - that's why they're included. Glad everything is working.

Unconfirmedsasquatch

Thanks very much for the help. Much appreciated.