Zotero Standalone and Firefox have stopped working together

madhusudansingh

Platform: Mac OSX Mavericks 10.9.2
Zotero version: Latest (today)
Zotero Firefox plugin: Latest (today).

I have used Zotero Standalone for Mac and the Firefox plugin flawlessly together for months. I recently upgraded to Mavericks from Mountain Lion (I am not sure that that is related to what I am experiencing).

I use this setup in a proxied environment as well as proxy free. Never had a problem.

A few days ago, I was getting an error (don't recall precise text) upon trying to launch to launch Standalone, where it said that Zotero was already running (it wasn't). So, to get past that, I fired up a Terminal, and manually deleted something that looked like a lock file. Sure enough, Standalone fired up. I did not notice a problem until today.

I tried to add an article (does not matter which site - happens for AIP, ACS, Wiley, Elsevier, etc.) but could not find the address bar icon in Firefox (or Chrome for that matter).

I uninstalled both the plugin and Standalone and reinstalled them from the website.

Now, when I have firefox alone open, I get the address bar icon and can save the article to "My Library".

However, when I fire up Standalone and try to save the article to a particular collection from Firefox, I get "Could Not Save Item. Check known translator issues ...".

Further, if I try to reload the same URL in Firefox (with Standalone open), the address bar icon vanishes.

This was NEVER the case earlier. I wondered if I messed up my database somehow. I have run "check database integrity". It checks out. I have rebuild the text index. No help.

How do I go about finding out what is causing this? This is a show stopper as I need to have Firefox and Standalone open at the same time (I am using Word to write an article).

dstillman

Are they both pointing to the same data directory? Check in Advanced -> Files and Folders. They should be. Basically, if you open Standalone and the Zotero pane in Firefox disappears, that's good.

Have you tried saving from another browser using the Chrome or Safari extension? (With Standalone open, Zotero for Firefox should function the same way as those.)

dstillman

And does it help if you restart Firefox after Standalone is already open?

This is a show stopper as I need to have Firefox and Standalone open at the same time (I am using Word to write an article).

That's fine, but I don't totally follow your logic here. What does this have to do with Word?

madhusudansingh

Thanks for your suggestions.

For Standalone, under Advanced > Files & Folders, Show Data Directory shows Application Support > Zotero > Profiles > <something>.default > zotero.

For Firefox, I get the same o/p for Show Data Directory, but Data Directory Location is set to Custom (which is different from above). I do not know how this is possible.

The crazy thing is that the different directory above (in custom) is some random directory where I usually dump .bib files. Its nowhere near the Application Support > Zotero or Firefox directory trees.

Anyhow, given your statement that both should be the same, I tried to click Use profile directory. It asked me to quite Firefox and restart. I agreed. When I restarted, it offered me options of copying settings from Standalone or specifying a custom directory. I asked to copy settings (default). When I checked the settings, they were unchanged from before.

Then I decided to do something radical. I deleted Firefox. I deleted its Application Support folder and then I reinstalled. I am back to the situation initially.

I really do not know what is going on. If I am being really stupid, could you be a bit more specific?

The Zotero pane in Firefox does not vanish when I open standalone.

I have tried Chrome - does not work (no address bar icon). I have not tried Safari. In the past, I have somehow found Firefox to be more reliable for this purpose than Chrome (where translators sometimes do not save PDFs).

As to the comment about Word, I am doing literature search and writing at the same time. Firefox makes it easier to save articles through the address bar in the collection of my choice (I do not want everything saved to "My Library"). Standalone is easier if I want to open the PDFs and make annotations.

dstillman

I have tried Chrome - does not work (no address bar icon).

Do you have the Chrome extension installed? I wasn't suggesting using Chrome — just suggesting it as a debugging step, since the Chrome/Safari extensions are considerably simpler than Zotero for Firefox, and that would let us know if the problem was on the Standalone side or the Firefox side.

As for the directories, I'm not really following everything that you're doing, but for this to work properly you need to have them pointing at the same directory, and in your case that should be the Standalone profile directory.

Firefox makes it easier to save articles through the address bar in the collection of my choice (I do not want everything saved to "My Library").

Just to note here, with Standalone items are saved from the connectors into whatever collection is selected in Standalone, not necessarily My Library. It's true that this is currently easier in Firefox, though.

dstillman

For Firefox, I get the same o/p for Show Data Directory

Also, not sure what you mean here.

madhusudansingh

Color me totally lost now.

Just to make sure I was starting from a clean slate, I did the following:

1. I removed both Zotero Standalone and Firefox from my machine. Removed the Application Support directories.
2. I installed Zotero. Put in my information. Let it finish sync'ing from Zotero library and my WebDAV settings. When it finished, I moved to step 3. Left Standalone running.
3. I installed Firefox. Installed the Zotero Firefox browser extension. It asked me to restart Firefox. I did.
4. It next informed me that it had detected a pre-existing Zotero library and asked me whether I wanted to import settings from Standalone. I took the default option (Yes).
5. I went to scholar.google.com, put in a search term, went to an ACS article (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja063290d). It does not matter if it is ACS or Wiley or AIP. The result is the same. No address bar icon.
6. Shut down Standalone. Reloaded the URL. The address bar icon appears!
7. I clicked on it. It downloaded the citation and PDF to My Library.
8. I started Standalone. Went back to Firefox window and clicked on the first citing article (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cm402421p). The address bar icon is gone.

For completeness, I provide the following details:

a) In Standalone, the Files and Folder setting is set to a folder inside the Application Support > Zotero tree. The option chosen for Data Directory Location is "Use profile directory".
b) In Firefox (I shut down Standalone, and go to (in Firefox) Tools > Add-ons > Extensions > Zotero > Preferences > ,

its set to Custom with something unrelated in the text field. Show Data Directory indicates the same folder as in a).

So, it looks like that your condition is being met.

But Firefox and Standalone don't work together (starting from fresh installs in each case).

What am I missing?

yewy9

Can anyone help ?

The Zotero Icon has dissapered from my desktop.
I think it is still operational as I am able to add items from the internet.It is saving to Zotero, however I can't access my library.

adamsmith

yewy9 - same for you: please start a new thread ("Start new Discussion" at top left) and provide some more details, e.g. which Zotero version you're using, which operating system etc.