Zotero should not silently fail to run its HTTP server

pchampin
When Zotero is configured to run the HTTP server, and fails to open the configured port (for example, if it is being used by another process), it should warn the user (e.g. by opening a tab explaining the problem).
  • adamsmith
    could you maybe provide a bit more background here? It's not like this is an issue that comes up a lot, so I'm wondering where your request is coming from.
  • pchampin
    Indeed, I've been using Zotero a long time without encountering that problem...

    But a few days ago, Zotero was not responding; requests to http://localhost:23119/ just hanged indefinitely .
    I ran
    lsof -i:23119
    to discover that another process (emacs) had chose this very port number for its internal communication with a subprocess...

    Stopping emacs and firefox (I'm using the Zotero as a FF extension, not as a standalone app) and restarting them solved the problem.

    However, I would have liked Zotero to warn me that the HTTP server was not running: since the requests handed (instead of failing to connect), it took me some time to understand that it was not Zotero who was stuck, but another process accepting the connection.

    I hope those explanations are more helpful that my initial post.
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