citationbyIndex undefined

gutajleu

Hey there, after my Zotero updated to Version 5.0.38 id suddendly does not work in my main document anymore. That means if I want to add a citation the error message citationByIndex[i].sortedItems undefined appears.

In other word documents it works, only in the most important one it doesnt.

thank you very much for your help

dstillman

Could you follow step 8 of the Debugging Broken Documents instructions and email the broken snippet to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread?

Schnickschnack

I have the same problem when adding a new citation. Is there any solution yet?
Never touch a running system....

PatriciaHoward

I am having the same problem and have gone through the steps including step 8 but the problem is not resolved - see Report ID 1861148365. I attempt to insert new citations (not cited previously) and get the same error message. I am able to insert some citations but not others; I have also deleted the (erroneous?) citations in Zotero and re-created them, but this doesn't help either. Restarting Zotero doesn't help. At times Zotero also asks me to select the bibliographical style each time I want to insert a citation instead of only when I start it up initially (this hasn't happened before). A RADICAL step seems to have helped; TWICE I eliminated all citations from the document, copying only TEXT into a new document, and then re-inserting the citations. The first time it didn't work, but the second time it did. But I'm not convinced that the problems won't reappear.

adomasven

The error you are seeing is likely reliably reproducible. If you can identify and post the steps to make it occur either in a new document, or a specific Zotero item that causes the issue, we will fix it as soon as possible.

Schnickschnack

I found a solution/workaround, maybe this helps to fix the problem:

I remembered that I previously copied a full sentence, including a citation, to another chapter of my word file. After deleting the copy the error is gone!

mhtarbox

I am having the same issue, Report ID: 1362855587. Tried different citation styles, tried adding a citation in different parts of the document, and am still getting the error message after updating Zotero. Has anyone had any luck?

miaco

Whenever I delete and re-add the entire bibliography, I am able to add citations to the main body text again. But I have to do it each time. :-) hahaha oh my.

krvs

Tried step 8. Didn't work. Is there any old version of Zotero 5 that works that we can download? I kind of need this to work as soon as possible for my paper.

dstillman

@krvs: Unless you're seeing this in a new document, Step 8 has to work, by definition. The point of the instructions is that you're narrowing a copy of the document down to find the part or parts that are actually causing the problem.

krvs

@dstillman yes I am seeing happen in a blank document. It happens within the second or third citation.

dstillman

What Word version and what citation style?

krvs

Word 15.33, APA 6th Edition, on a 2016 MacBook Pro running Sierra (and now High Sierra)

dstillman

1) Can you provide a Debug ID for reproducing this in a new document, and also send the document to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread once it occurs?

2) Word 15.33 is an old version of Word 2016, and if possible you should upgrade to the latest version (currently 16.11, unless this is a volume license).

PatriciaHoward

Ok, I did precisely the following. 1) I added NEW text to an OLD document. 2) I attempted to add a NEW citation at the end of the NEW text, and was unable to do so; it generated the error message. Then, 3) I went to OLD text in the document, where I had an OLD citation, and tried to insert another OLD citation into the OLD text, and got the error message. 4) I then copied the NEW text that I had added to a NEW DOCUMENT and then successfully added the NEW citation. 5) I deleted the NEW text from the OLD document and successfully added an OLD citation AND successfully generated a bibliography. So the problem has something to do with simply adding new text and a new citation to the OLD document - which, if done exactly the same way in a separate document, works. Please, what's the glitch then?

PatriciaHoward

P.S. I was also able to add the NEW citation to the OLD text (after deleting the new text).

PatriciaHoward

Aha! It doesn't work if I try to add the page number!

StygianInq

I am getting the same issue, sure enough while finishing up writing the last chapter of my dissertation :(. Hopefully it will get fixed soon. I have found that if I open up a blank document in Word I can place citations there and then copy and paste them into the old document without issue but I have not tried to generate a works cited page yet so I don't know if the copy and pasted citations will show up in that.

pkruchinin

I had the same problem. I've done 2 steps to recover:
1. Alt+F9, Ctrl+F - find all broken citations (with empty properties);
2. Change document preferences, save them, then restore my defaults for preferences and save them again (I changed the style).
Zotero doesn't ask the preferences any more, and the citations are added as usual.

PatriciaHoward

Thanks for this but, I don't get it - is this in Word (while in a document) or in Zotero? Pressing Alt+F9, Ctrl+F at the same time (or in sequence) doesn't do anything for me in Word, or in Zotero. Change document preferences to what? Can you please be a little more explicit?

gutajleu

what worked on my computer:

1. open zotero
2. go to help
3. choose Logging Debuggin-Outputs
4. choose activate
5. do step 2 and 3 again and then click on "restart with activated logging".

After that I opened my wordfile again, refreshed zotero and it worked again.

adomasven

Sorry for the trouble. We will have a fix out soon. In the meantime, this is caused by duplicating citations in a document (via copy and paste). If you have copied citations, you have to click "refresh" in the Zotero tab first before performing additional citations. Once again, this is temporary and will be fixed with the next version of Zotero within the following few days.

PatriciaHoward

Thanks!

Rika Dewi

I had the same problem, and it's so frustrating.
Iknow that this sounds silly, but I couldn't find the help button on Zotero, also how to "Refresh" in the Zotero tab? I'm using Macbook. Thank you

Didoo

Find the solution!!! I had the same problem. I changed the style (doesn't matter wich one). Zotero refreshed the whole file. Then, I changed it again to the style I used to work with.
It worked.

dstillman

This should now be fixed in the latest Zotero beta. We'll have a new release version out soon.

reshah2

I am also having the same problem and also using MacBook Pro.

reshah2

My report id is: 165403787

I am also receiving the same error message and can't seem to figure out what to do to insert a citation in my document. I have tried the suggestions listed on the forum without success.

adamsmith

@reshah2 -- simply pressing the Refresh button in the Word add-on should work, as should installing the beta version linked to right above your first post.

dstillman

This should be fixed in Zotero 5.0.40, available now via Help → Check for Updates. Sorry for the trouble.

krvs

5.0.40 didn't fix the problem, unfortunately. However, the @Didoo solution worked! Switched the citation style, which refreshed the whole document (clicking on the refresh button didn't work before since it asked me to "insert a citation" of which I had dozens), and then I switched back to APA and it continued to work. Thank you!