Zotero plugin do not detect Zotero standalone

gagarine

This issue makes me crazy. I'm using Zotero standalone and I tried to install the Firefox plugin again (it was not working anymore with e10s so I uninstall it).

But once again the plugin didn't detect my standalone version. How many time I will have to say we should provide the same plugin as chrome to avoid such problems? Especially now it's ready and it just needs to be built and distributed.

I spend every week sometimes with peoples struggling with such problems when it can be quickly fixed upstream.

Finally, can we remove the integrated Firefox version of this software? I know "a lot of people" are going to cry, but this kinf of view is 1000% biased: you have no view of all the users that don't use zotero because of those kinds of problems.

gagarine

I guess it's going to append for version 5 https://github.com/zotero/zotero-connectors/issues/48 ?

dstillman

What do you mean by "didn't detect"? First, to be clear, if you enabled e10s manually, the current extension won't work. Beyond that, the extension has to be set to the same data directory location as Standalone (which it is by default), but that's about it — it's extremely rare for Zotero for Firefox to have trouble communicating with Standalone, and we'd need more info (e.g., a Debug ID for Firefox startup using the "Enable after restart" option) to debug it.

I'm still not sure exactly what the problem is you're facing here, but, for what it's worth, it's actually far more common for the HTTP-based communication that the connectors use to be blocked by security software or proxies. So while you've tied together these issues, your idea that the connector version is going to be an improvement across the board, or even for this specific issue, is unfortunately mistaken.

That said, we're finishing up some work on the WebExtension, and then we'll provide a beta version on a separate upgrade track, hopefully within the next week. Sometime in the next couple months, after the migration communication referenced in that ticket is in place, we'll move all existing extension users over to the WebExtension. (Zotero 5.0 will still be released initially as a full Firefox extension, so that's not related.)

gagarine

I was thinking the extension was capable of knowing I have the standalone installed even if I did change directory. I did change the "linked Attachment base direcotry" but my data directory is set to "default" (/User/Simon/Zotero)

Anyways, good to see things are moving. So I think it's kind of useless to try to fix stuff in this area if anyway it's going to be replaced by the WebExtension. I'm looking forward.

dstillman

I was thinking the extension was capable of knowing I have the standalone installed even if I did change directory.

The first time you use either version, it will detect the other and use the other's data directory by default. But if you previously had the Firefox version installed, moved the Standalone directory manually, and didn't remove the Firefox version's prefs, the Firefox version would use the old setting when you reinstalled it. It's not clear to me whether that's your situation. When 5.0 migrates the data directory to the new default location (~/Zotero) automatically, it should also automatically change any other versions pointing to the old location to point to the new one.