Zotero hangs then crashes (along with Office 2016)

michele77

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this, but I'm having the same problem. I'm trying to finish a book by the weekend, and I'm converting hundreds of footnotes from EndNote. I use Mac Office 2016 (Yosemite 10.10.2). If I try to insert or modify a citation, Zotero hangs, then Word hangs, then I have to force quit. This has probably happened about 25-30 times today. It's pissing me off and wasting my time.
I've only received 2 errors messages from Zotero: Zotero Integration Error, Zotero experienced an error updating your document, this operation couldn't be completed: (OSS Status Error ~609 @ getDocument : application.m:81.) The other error was Document modified during update (I didn't do anything at all because the program was frozen, mind you) @setCode field m: 585.
Thanks

adamsmith

So how reproducible is this? It happens every time or it happens frequently but not always?

And could you do a quick check in a new document with just a couple of citations? Any problems there?

michele77

Hi Adam,
So, here's what's happening so far. It seems the smaller the document, the less frequently it happens. I just opened my full manuscript (280 pages, about 400 citations), and I went to insert a new citation, and zotero hung, but didn't crash Word. Oddly enough, I do not get error messages most of the time. I'm currently working with a short paper (12 pages), so I'll write again if I have problems.

michele77

And it just hung again and when I quit zotero to keep it from crashing Word, I got this message:
Zotero experienced an error updating your document.

Database permanently closed; not re-opening

This is so aggravating...my book is due today. I've had my system crash about 45-50 times since Tuesday...on both of my MacBooks.

adamsmith

so a somewhat slow experience with Zotero in long documents is currently expected -- and that includes hangs. At least for Word 2004/2011, Word for Mac was particularly slow. Not sure if the 2016 version improved that.

The last error you reported is just describing what's going on:
Zotero is getting data from its database (that's the hang--because it's slow in long docs)
and then when you (force)quit Zotero, the database isn't available anymore so it correctly observes:
"Database permanently closed; not re-opening"

michele77

I re-open Zotero every time I have to force quit and I've still received that message.
My book is now two days late as a result and I just lost an hour of work thanks to six hangs/crashes.

dstillman

If you force quit it, things will break. adamsmith is say that in a large document in Word for Mac you may have to let it go for a while. It's not clear from your posts so far how long you're waiting.

yannmael

I have the same problem with my thesis (700 pages, 3000 citations). I'm in a desperate situation. If anyone could help me.

adamsmith

Same question -- how long are you waiting, what exactly is happening?
In a document of this size, 30mins wouldn't be surprising.

yannmael

I have tried several times all day, but nothing happens (except error messages after a long wait between 5 or 10 minutes).

adamsmith

OK, and what do the error messages say exactly?

yannmael

I have this message "Database permanently closed; not re-opening" :/

adamsmith

Presumably you've tried restarting your computer?
And just to be clear: you click insert bibliography, you don't do anything, you don't cancel anything nor get any other error messages on your computer and then after 5-10mins that error message appears?

yannmael

Yes, it's exactly that. Of course, I have tried to restart my computer without results. The most strange is that it still works with small folder.

sylvia.mullins

Hello! I am in a similar boat. I'm trying to generate a bibliography for 150 pages (600 footnotes). {Citation} appears but then nothing happens. By the time my thesis is done it will be circa 500 pages, so I need to be able to generate a single bibliography for all that material.

What is a reasonable amount of time to wait for the bibliography to appear?

Thanks for your help!

yannmael

I have another error message who appears :
"The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error -1708.) @[selectField:field.m:322]"

And always this one :
"Database permanently close; not re-opening"

Any idea ?

adamsmith

(@Dan et al. -- I don't have the expertise to troubleshoot these; you'll need to get Simon or someone else who can actually look at what's going on to check this out)