Help - Hospital Firewall and Syncing

C3DPL

I'm having trouble getting Zotero Standalone to sync. I am behind a hospital firewall. The IT admins have white listed sync.zotero.org, but I am still running into issues.

I keep my files on a WebDAV enabled server. Until recently, this has been working fine. When I check my information with "Verify Server," I have no problem.

I tried to send an error report, but I get the error: Invalid response from repository

Any ideas? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

My error log is:

[JavaScript Error: "1459266113860 Toolkit.Telemetry ERROR TelemetryStorage::loadAbortedSessionPing - error removing ping: PingReadError JS Stack trace: PingReadError@TelemetryStorage.jsm:80:15 < TelemetryStorageImpl.loadPingFile<@TelemetryStorage.jsm:1440:13" {file: "resource://gre/modules/Log.jsm" line: 749}]
[JavaScript Error: "Error connecting to server. Check your Internet connection." {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js" line: 2595}]
[JavaScript Error: "Error connecting to server. Check your Internet connection." {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js" line: 652}]
1459266233878 addons.update-checker WARN Request for https://www.zotero.org/download/update-source.rdf timed out
1459266233879 addons.update-checker WARN Request for https://www.zotero.org/download/update-source.rdf timed out

version => 4.0.29.5, platform => Win32, oscpu => Windows NT 6.1; WOW64, locale => en-US, appName => Zotero, appVersion => 4.0.29.5, extensions => Zotero LibreOffice Integration (3.5.11.SA.4.0.29.5, extension), Zotero Word for Windows Integration (3.5.4.SA.4.0.29.5, extension), AdobeAAMDetect (1.0.0.0, plugin), Adobe Acrobat (11.0.14.16, plugin), WacomTabletPlugin (2.1.0.7, plugin), Google Update (1.3.29.5, plugin), Microsoft Office 2010 (14.0.4730.1010, plugin), Microsoft Office 2010 (14.0.4761.1000, plugin), Silverlight Plug-In (5.1.41105.0, plugin), Java(TM) Platform SE 8 U31 (11.31.2.13, plugin), Java Deployment Toolkit 8.0.310.13 (11.31.2.13, plugin), Shockwave Flash (11.7.700.260, plugin), Citrix Online Web Deployment Plugin 1.0.0.104 (1.0.0.104, plugin)

My Debug code is:

[JavaScript Error: "1459266113860 Toolkit.Telemetry ERROR TelemetryStorage::loadAbortedSessionPing - error removing ping: PingReadError JS Stack trace: PingReadError@TelemetryStorage.jsm:80:15 < TelemetryStorageImpl.loadPingFile<@TelemetryStorage.jsm:1440:13" {file: "resource://gre/modules/Log.jsm" line: 749}]

[JavaScript Error: "Error connecting to server. Check your Internet connection." {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js" line: 2595}]

[JavaScript Error: "Error connecting to server. Check your Internet connection." {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js" line: 652}]

1459266233878 addons.update-checker WARN Request for https://www.zotero.org/download/update-source.rdf timed out

1459266233879 addons.update-checker WARN Request for https://www.zotero.org/download/update-source.rdf timed out

[JavaScript Error: "wizard.rewind is not a function" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/errorReport.xul" line: 120}]

[JavaScript Error: "Error connecting to server. Check your Internet connection." {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js" line: 2595}]

[JavaScript Error: "Error connecting to server. Check your Internet connection." {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js" line: 652}]

version => 4.0.29.5, platform => Win32, oscpu => Windows NT 6.1; WOW64, locale => en-US, appName => Zotero, appVersion => 4.0.29.5

=========================================================

(5)(+0000000): SELECT subject FROM relations WHERE predicate != ? UNION SELECT object FROM relations WHERE predicate != ?

(5)(+0000000): Binding parameter 1 of type string: "dc:isReplacedBy"

(5)(+0000000): Binding parameter 2 of type string: "dc:isReplacedBy"

(3)(+0000000): ===>false<=== (boolean)

(3)(+0000001): Notifier.trigger('redraw', 'collection', []) called [observers: 8]

(4)(+0000000): Calling notify('redraw') on observer with hash 'Kp'

(4)(+0000000): Calling notify('redraw') on observer with hash '2y'

(4)(+0000000): Calling notify('redraw') on observer with hash 'Ds'

(5)(+0000000): Beginning DB transaction

(3)(+0000000): Beginning Notifier event queue

(5)(+0000000): Committing transaction

(3)(+0000000): Resetting Notifier event queue

(4)(+0000000): Calling notify('redraw') on observer with hash '9d'

(4)(+0000000): Calling notify('redraw') on observer with hash 'Z2'

(4)(+0000000): Calling notify('redraw') on observer with hash 'VL'

(4)(+0000000): Calling notify('redraw') on observer with hash 'l1'

(4)(+0000000): Calling notify('redraw') on observer with hash 'W4'

(3)(+0000000): Session ID not available -- logging in

(5)(+0000000): SELECT version FROM version WHERE schema='userdata'

(3)(+0000000): HTTP POST version=9&username=C3DPL&password=******** to https://sync.zotero.org/login

(3)(+0086926): Getting WebDAV password

(1)(+0039396): Error connecting to server. Check your Internet connection.

(1)(+0000000): Error: Error connecting to server. Check your Internet connection.
===== Stack Trace =====
Zotero.Sync.Runner</this.error@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js:652:1
Zotero.Sync.Runner</this.sync/<.onError@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js:622:5
_error@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js:2604:3
_checkResponse@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js:2026:1
Zotero.Sync.Server</login/<@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync.js:1453:4
_fulfilled@resource://zotero/q.js:887:54
when/</<@resource://zotero/q.js:917:30
makePromise/promise.promiseDispatch@resource://zotero/q.js:571:13
defer/become/</<@resource://zotero/q.js:474:17
onTick@resource://zotero/q.js:163:17
setTimeout</setTimeout/<.notify@resource://zotero/q.js:78:7
=======================

adamsmith

And this has worked before? I'm a bit skeptical how realistic it is to have Standalone working behind a Firewall that requires individual domains to be whitelisted (rather than just http/s traffic from and to Standalone.)

dstillman

Yeah, the message pretty much means what it says — if Zotero can't connect to sync.zotero.org, there's nothing to do other than talk to your IT department. Note that 1) Zotero needs to connect to port 443 (HTTPS), not 80 (HTTP), 2) you should have repo.zotero.org and api.zotero.org access too, but 3) Zotero really needs full Internet access to work properly. Various things in Zotero won't work properly — retrieving metadata for PDFs, adding items by identifier, saving some files — unless it has the same permissions as a web browser.

C3DPL

It was working for several months.

I will check to make sure those ports and the additional subdomains are added.

Thank you!

dstillman

But see the end of my post — Zotero really isn't going to work properly without full web access.

C3DPL

I just tested my chrome extension on pubmed. I'm able to pull metadata and pdfs to my Zotero standalone, but I am just not able to push it to my WebDAV server (or pull it back).

dstillman

This isn't related to WebDAV at all (though you'd need access to that too, of course).

And some things will still work via the Chrome extension, but a range of features — including anything you trigger from Standalone itself — won't unless Standalone has web-browser-equivalent access.

C3DPL

I appreciate the help here. I would love to continue using Zotero for my clinical research.

I understand the ideal environment is open internet. If I have to work through an enterprise firewall, is there a master list anywhere of the domains and ports used by Zotero?

dstillman

A firewall isn't a problem — it's giving the Zotero application less access than your web browser. There's no way to list domains used by Zotero because that just depends on what you're saving. So ideally you would just ask IT to give Zotero web-browser permissions (since that's actually what it is, under the hood, and if they're allowing web browsers, there's no real reason not to allow Zotero to access the same things).

But for zotero.org subdomains — strictly for syncing, translator/style updating, and error reporting — currently the ones that matter are the ones listed above, all on port 443.

adamsmith

If you're able to use Firefox with the Zotero add-on, btw., you'd be able to get around this.

dstillman

(Though that would be temporary, since the full version of Zotero for Firefox is going away.)

DWL-SDCA

Background and context. HIPAA.
Hospital administrators and lawyers are fearful of shadows. The least thing can lead to startle reactions before any thoughtful action. This will require time for the anxiety to diminish enough so that rules and technological capacity can become balanced. This is a matter of unthinking distrust of outsiders.

There has recently been a series of messages from security companies designed to increase anxiety among hospital IT department managers about HIPAA-related restrictions. One recent alarming ad recommended that there should be no access to the internet from any device connected to the hospital network. No wi-fi. No text messages. No computer that is ever used outside the facility can ever be connected to the hospital network. No computer that was ever connected to the network can ever leave the facility. No more can Cat connectors be used, onle custom machine-specific, hard wired connections. No email (in or out) that isn't encripted. Special provisions to assure that only the -single- intended recipient will view the email message. No blind copies. There are even recommendations for the elimination of fax and photocopy machines lest patient information can escape the facility. Danger Will Robinson.

For those outside the medical field in the USA , HIPAA regulates (among other important things) patient medical data privacy. Resulting regulations set very high monetary penalties for security lapses.