Office for Mac 2016

guillau25

Hi everyone !

For me it's not working... I've updated Zotero Standalone to 4.0.27.6 and I clean installed Mac OS El Capitan. In my word 2016, I've the icons of Zotero in the add-ins tab but when I want to add a citation, it says "Word couldn't communicate with Zotero. Please ensure that firefox is open and try again". But I've never used Firefox at all so I don't understand. I tried uninstall Zotero, uninstall Word 2011 (I keep it because of Zotero not working), and I tried manually placing the Zotero.dot file in "/Users/Yam/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content.localized/Startup.localized/Word".

Can anybody help me ? I can't completely remove Office 2011 if Zotero is not working for me because I'm currently writing a scientific report.

ID : 672926660

kamy08

I am having the same issue...the zotero toolbar is in 2016's Add-on section but when i press on any of them it says " Word couldn't communicate with Zotero...."

Edit:Microsoft word is in the applications folder and trash is empty. I also have word 2011 installed if that makes a difference.

Simon

guillau25 and/or kamy08: Can you mind following the instructions at https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/47311/2/office-for-mac-2016/#Item_2 to help me figure out what's going on here?

kamy08

@Simon:

Debug ID: 640499229

ls -la ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data
users-MacBook-Pro:~ user$ ls -la ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data
total 48
drwx------ 11 user staff 374 Jul 14 12:47 .
drwx------ 4 user staff 136 Jul 9 23:26 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 31 Jul 9 23:26 .CFUserTextEncoding -> ../../../../.CFUserTextEncoding
prw------- 1 user staff 0 Jul 14 12:47 .zoteroIntegrationPipe
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 19 Jul 9 23:26 Desktop -> ../../../../Desktop
drwx------ 3 user staff 102 Jul 9 23:26 Documents
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 21 Jul 9 23:26 Downloads -> ../../../../Downloads
drwx------ 29 user staff 986 Jul 9 23:28 Library
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 18 Jul 9 23:26 Movies -> ../../../../Movies
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 17 Jul 9 23:26 Music -> ../../../../Music
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 20 Jul 9 23:26 Pictures -> ../../../../Pictures

Simon

kamy08: Can you run this from the Terminal with Zotero and a Word document open:

echo 'MacWord2016 addCitation' > ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/.zoteroIntegrationPipe

and see what happens?

kamy08

@simon: I ran that and the citation box opens and I can insert citations into word 2016. However, clicking on zotero addon icons in word 2016 still gives that communication error

kamy08

any clue Simon?

Simon

kamy08: Can you try the following:

1) Exit Word
2) Download Zotero.dot.zip from here
3) Decompress it
4) Manually place the new Zotero.dot in ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/User Content/Startup/Word replacing the old Zotero.dot. (You can get to that directory by pressing Command-Shift-G in Finder and pasting that path in.)
5) Click one of the buttons in the toolbar.

This will most likely still not work, but when you click the button, two dialogs should appear that will help us figure out what's going wrong. Post their contents here.

kamy08

@simon: As you said 2 error dialogs appeared.

1st one says: "the command exited with a non-zero status", then i press OK and second one shows up

2nd one says: Microsoft Visual basic
Run-time error '5':
Invalid procedure call or argument

kamy08

Still having the issue....it was curious to see why calling it through terminal worked but not through zotero's icons? could it mean that the the process by which the icons are calling on to zotero is not finding the right $path?

Simon

The plugin is expecting that the home directory in Word is the home directory in the container and that Word can access it, but for reason I can't figure out that's not the case on your system.

If you're interested in debugging further, I've updated Zotero.dot.zip and you can try downloading it again from the same place above and following the steps again. You should get three dialogs this time. Hopefully that will be enough information for me to understand what's different on your system.

kamy08

@Simon, thanks for following up. I will continue debugging as much as needed as I use Zotero on a daily basis.

So with the new .dot the dialogs are:

Dialog 1: "/Users/user/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data" ... that's all it says

Dialog 2: total 48
drwx------ 11 user staff 374 Jul 15 11:49 .
drwx------ 4 user staff 136 Jul 9 23:26 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 31 Jul 9 23:26 .CFUserTextEncoding -> ../../../../.CFUserTextEncoding
prw------- 1 user staff 0 Jul 15 11:49 .zoteroIntegrationPipe
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 19 Jul 9 23:26 Desktop -> ../../../../Desktop
drwx------ 3 user staff 102 Jul 9 23:26 Documents
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 21 Jul 9 23:26 Downloads -> ../../../../Downloads
drwx------ 29 user staff 986 Jul 9 23:28 Library
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 18 Jul 9 23:26 Movies -> ../../../../Movies
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 17 Jul 9 23:26 Music -> ../../../../Music
lrwxr-xr-x 1 user staff 20 Jul 9 23:26 Pictures -> ../../../../Pictures

Dialog 3: "ls: user: Operation not permitted"

Please let me know your thoughts, thanks! I've mentioned this before but i also have Office 2011 installed since i have a few active projects and need a working Zotero. Curious thing is that Zotero works fine with office 2011 even though its not even in the /applications folder

Simon

kamy08: Okay, we're getting somewhere. Can you download the .dot again and follow those same steps? I changed it again; there should be just one dialog this time. You can send the output to support@zotero.org, since it's possible it might have personally identifying information, although it shouldn't.

This should be the last thing to build a plugin that works for you.

kamy08

Hi Simon, I don't see any personal information so I'm pasting it here:

export APP_SANDBOX_CONTAINER_ID="com.microsoft.Word"
export Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render="/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.YkYAMUS7Mh/Render"
export CFFIXED_USER_HOME="/Users/user/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data"
export HOME="/Users/user"
export LOGNAME="user"
export OLDPWD
export PATH="/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin"
export PWD="/Users/user/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data"
export SHELL="/bin/bash"
export SHLVL="1"
export SSH_AUTH_SOCK="/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.SJ1AkwokCI/Listeners"
export TMPDIR="/var/folders/hc/b5h58tws2b9ffswkbwv67bbm0000gn/T/com.microsoft.Word/"
export USER="user"
export XPC_FLAGS="0x0"
export XPC_SERVICE_NAME="0"
export __CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING="0x1F5:0x0:0x0"

Simon

kamy08: Please try installing the MacWord Trunk XPI from https://www.zotero.org/support/dev_builds#word_processor_plugins_development_xpis and let me know if it works

kamy08

Simon, it works!! thanks for all the help! what was the issue on my system?

Simon

kamy08: Thanks for helping me debug this!

For some reason, within Word, the HOME environmental variable on your system points to your actual home directory (which Word can't access because it's sandboxed and has restricted permissions) rather than to the sandbox container directory (which Word can access). But the CFFIXED_USER_HOME environmental variable points to the right place. On my system and the other systems I tested with, CFFIXED_USER_HOME and HOME both point to the same directory inside the container. I changed the code to try a few directories as described here. I'm not sure if any but CFFIXED_USER_HOME is actually necessary, but I didn't see how it would hurt.

kamy08

Ah i see! strange that my system does that..i wonder if having office 2011 also installed has something to do with changed paths or not but anyhow thanks again for spending the time to fix this evidently isolated problem.

Simon

I just released new versions of Zotero Word for Mac Integration and Zotero Standalone that include the fix.

kamy08: You should uninstall the trunk XPI. If you're using Firefox you should install the new release of Zotero Word for Mac Integration. If you're using standalone, you don't need to install anything after uninstalling the trunk XPI; just update to the latest version of Standalone.

FWIW, I also have Office 2011 installed, so I'm still puzzled why your system behaves differently. But hopefully this solution will work for everyone.

kamy08

Thanks Simon! I can confirm that the new standalone (4.0.27.7) does fix the issue i was having.