References out of order with citations

okayross

Hi there,

I'm new to Zotero. I have a new Mac with microsoft software (i.e., word). I started using Zotero with no problems. I then received a Zotero pop-up message indicating a citation had been changed, and I was prompted to select yes or no (yes being the default). I chose yes... several times. I then received an error message. After this, my citations no longer were consistent with the references. Even if I updated my bibliography.

This is extremely time consuming and I'm considering buying Endnote. But I sense there's an easy solution. Maybe someone can kindly help out.

Thx

adamsmith

If I understand you correctly, the full text of the message was:

"You have modified this citation since Zotero generated it. Do you want to keep your modifications and prevent future updates?

Clicking "Yes" will prevent Zotero from updating this citation if you add additional citations, switch styles, or modify the reference to which it refers. Clicking "No" will erase your changes."

you clicked yes and that's exactly what happened - Zotero isn't updating that citation anymore and so the numbers - it sounds like you're using a numerical style - don't update anymore and don't correspond to the bibliography.

That's at this point not super easy to fix in that document, but it shouldn't come up during regular use - did you reformat citations in any way? add commas, superscript them or so?

okayross

Thanks, appreciate it.

That is precisely the pop-up message I receive. It appears several times in a string, which seems odd if the message is generated only when references are modified because I'm not modifying them with any regularity. On occasion I move a reference within a given sentence. Perhaps this causes the prompt?

I will answer "no" to the prompt and see how this goes. Although I recall the problem still persisted.

The most worrisome thing is that I receive an additional error prompt with a bunch of normal characters and code after the series of yes/no prompts. No clue what this is. Will try to copy and paste here.

I'm starting to wonder... I have a Mac but with microsoft word. Should I have downloaded the microsoft version of Zotero?! Ahhh... perhaps?

Thx!

adamsmith

if your plugin is working at all you have the right version.

Moving around citations shouldn't be a problem, that message should only come up for actual changes, otherwise something isn't working right.

About the other error: Take a screenshot of the other error message, post it to a free image hosting site like imgur.com and link to it here.

Also see if you can provide an error report ID from within Firefox:
http://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_bugs

okayross

Hello,

Here is the precise prompt and error message I received in working with Zotero this evening. This occurred when I hit the "add citation" button and sought to add 2 new citations, previously uploaded, to my bibliography. After receiving the error message, all my bibliographic entries disappeared with the exception of the two new references I had cited. This is a royal pain and I would love for someone to inform me why this is happening.

First prompt: "You have modified this citation since Zotero generated it. Do you want to keep your modifications and prevent future updates? Clicking Yes will prevent Zotero from updating... ..."

I selected no this time. Last time I selected yes. Regardless, I receive this error prompt thereafter:

"Zotero experienced an error updating your document. [Exception..."The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error - 1728.) @[setTextRaw:field.m:388]' when calling method: [zoteroIntegrationField::setText]" nsresult: "0x8057001e (NS_ERROR_XPC_JS_THREW_STRING)" location: "JS frame:: chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/integration.js :: <TOP_LEVEL> :: line 1688" data: no]

Grateful for anyone's insight on this.

Thanks,
Ross

adamsmith

which Word version are you using?
If you start a new document, can you replicate that error?