Zotero Standalone crashes during synching (PC)

mepeacock

Out of the blue today, my Zotero Standalone repeatedly crashed at startup. I did some reading here and decided to turn off the automatic synch at startup (in the five seconds before the standalone crashed). It appears to have stopped the crashing, but now there is no synching. Zotero on Firefox appears to be working fine. Please advise.

dstillman

I assume it's just freezing, not crashing, right? Your copy of Zotero is performing a full download of your data, which can happen for various reasons, and in the current version can cause Zotero to temporarily freeze. (This won't happen in the upcoming Zotero 5.0.) If you let it go it should finish, but that also shouldn't be necessary if syncing is working in Zotero for Firefox — that would mean that Zotero for Firefox and Zotero Standalone aren't sharing the same data directory. You can tell if, when Standalone is open, clicking the Z icon brings Standalone to the front (which means they're sharing the same directory) or opens the pane in Firefox (which means they're using different directories). If the latter, you'd want to point Zotero Standalone to the same directory as Zotero for Firefox from the Advanced → Files and Folders pane of the Zotero preferences in each. (If you're not actually syncing in Firefox, this wouldn't be relevant, though, and you would just need to wait out the sync in Standalone.)

mepeacock

Thanks. When I click the Z icon, it brings up the Standalone, not the pane in Firefox. I have double checked that they are sharing the same directory. When will Zotero 5.0 be released?

dstillman

Soon, but as I say, in 4.0 you should just need to give it time to finish. The main difference in 5.0 is that it won't freeze the UI while it's processing — it won't take less long.