Frequent BSOD after updating to Zotero Standalone 5.0

balazsbog

I'm using Zotero for ages now without any problems. However, updating to 5.0 Standalone version introduced frequent BSOD on both of my computers Desktop/Notebook equally.

I have a very large collection of articles (approx 4000 entries with pdfs).

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with the new version of Standalone Zotero?

dstillman

A BSOD isn't really something Zotero itself (or most end-user programs) can cause — if it happens, that's a problem with Windows, a device driver, or hardware (e.g., RAM).

What version of Windows is this, and have you installed all updates?

balazsbog

Well, if it is not Zotero, then why is this happening with both of my computers simultaneously after updating to 5.0 Standalone. Why there was no problem with previous versions on both of my computers for ages?

I have Win 10 on both of my computers, one with recent Fall Creators update (Win 10 Home version) and one without it (not arrived on my notebook with Win10 Pro).

I know that correlation is not causation (the scientist in myself says I should be cautious about this), but it is certainly weird...

dstillman

Understandable, but you can read up on BSODs — they just by definition can't really be caused by standard software. The most that regular software should be able to do is crash. If the whole OS goes down, there's some other problem.

It's not impossible for something in a program like Zotero to trigger a BSOD, but that would still be a bug to be fixed elsewhere. And you're also the first to report this, despite Zotero 5.0 being available (in beta or release form) for over a year, so it's pretty likely that it's something specific to your systems unless we start seeing other reports of it.

balazsbog

Could be! Currently, I'm trying to browse the event viewer to find something useful.

I understand, that Zotero itself cannot cause BSOD, but there should be some system level conflict for which it is responsible. Otherwise, there should be another common reason why my two computer ran havoc at the same time.

balazsbog

Updates.

I have to apologize, you were right. Apparently, the BSODs on my desktop and my notebook were completely unrelated to the update of Standalone Zotero.

It turned out that my faulty SSD caused the crashes on my notebook and a third party VGA related software caused troubles on my desktop PC. I've replaced the SSD in my notebook and Zotero seems to work now. Probably there was an increased load of data read steps when I started Zotero leading to BSODs due to the faulty hardware.

Nevertheless, thank you for the quick answer to my first question.