Dialog box opens once per tab, instead of once

wbt

I have a computer with an open web browser. Every now and again, I'll look at it and see this message:
"Invalid username or password: The Zotero sync server did not accept your username and password. Please check that you have entered your zotero.org login information correctly in the Zotero sync preferences." Buttons are "Open Sync Preferences..." (why the ellipse?) and "Cancel"; both dismiss the dialog box with nothing happening.

The issue I wish to report here is that instead of one of these coming up, there are several of them stacked on top of one another, actually one for each open tab in the browser; sometimes (e. g. last check) it was one for each of the maximum number of tabs that had been open that session, though some had been closed by the time I was clicking through them to get back to browsing.

Zotero should check to see if one of these dialogs is already open before opening another.

dstillman

I don't really understand what you mean here. Do you mean that when that error occurs you get multiple copies of the alert dialog?

That's obviously not expected behavior, and I can't reproduce it on OS X or Windows XP. (You don't say what OS you're using.) But if "Open Sync Preferences" isn't doing what it says it's going to do, that's obviously broken too, so it sounds like you may have a more general window-related problem on your system. (Note, though, that if the Zotero preferences are already open behind the Firefox window, the button might appear not to do anything.)

Disable your other Firefox extensions, restart Firefox, and try again. If it still happens, take a screenshot, post it to a file-sharing site (e.g., imageshack.us), and provide a link here.

wbt

Do you mean that when that error occurs you get multiple copies of the alert dialog?

Yes.
I'm running Windows Vista on one machine (where it's observed) and 7 on another.

I think that instead of being once per tab, it might be that the boxes appear after time delay (perhaps on each attempt to sync). That computer spends a reasonable amount of time on but idle (it's slow), and they might just be piling up with the tab count being a distracting coincidence.
If you set the password to wrong and let the computer sit a long while (if you have a machine you can do that with), can you reproduce it that way?

The screenshot would look just the same as if it had appeared only once; they stack up directly on top of one another.

wbt

If no Firefox window is open (it's minimized), these dialogs stack up in the upper left corner of the desktop.

dstillman

OK, yes—this didn't have anything to do with the number of tabs open, just the length of idle time.

Zotero's post-edit auto-sync doesn't try to sync again automatically after particular errors that require manual intervention (such as an incorrect password). The idle sync was still trying to run in those situations, and I've fixed that for 3.0.4, so the message should appear only once.

Obviously, if you're getting that message, you probably want to correct or clear your username/password in the Sync pane of the Zotero preferences to keep it from appearing at all.

wbt

OK, glad to hear the issue was fixed.
After a few weeks of this, the sync preferences finally opened today and I was able to correct the password. The general and specific instances of this bug having both been solved, this bug is now closed.

Thanks!

WBT