Zotero seems to be installed but won't open! (Macbook)

kevinwilson

Hello,

I was trying to help a student download Zotero in a workshop yesterday. She is using a Macbook and we did the usual installation, downloading the plug-ins and dragging the app to install as is the way with Macs. When told that Zotero is an application downloaded from the Internet, do you want to open, we said yes and then it doesn't open. I found it in Finder and dragged to the dock. When we tried to open it, Zotero bounced as any application in the dock does when it tries to open, but after a few seconds, it still doesn't open. In Safari when she was searching our library catalogue, the usual bookmarking tool is greyed out and when I hovered over it suggested "Zotero was offline", which I assumed was connected to this. Does this sound like something anyone can help with?

Many thanks
Kevin

dstillman

If she has an old Mac and hasn't upgraded from 10.6 (Snow Leopard), the latest version of Zotero won't run, but the download page should automatically offer an older version in that case.

kevinwilson

Hi Dan,
Thanks for your reply. That makes sense. The student certainly did have an older Macbook so I'll suggest this. That's great if an alternative download option automatically appears (we like Zotero to be as simple as possible for students so it encourages them to use it!)
Kevin

dstillman

If she downloaded from the main download page she shouldn't even have had the option to download the incompatible newer version, but the first step would nevertheless be to see what macOS version she's running and what Zotero version she's downloading (based on the download link) and go from there.

kevinwilson

Thanks - I was running a workshop and I usually ask students to follow my lead but it's possible she downloaded incorrectly. I tried to re-install from the downloads folder but perhaps if the wrong thing was downloaded? Anyway, I'll check with her.

Kevin