Zotero 5.0.43 dosn't work with MS Word for Mac 16.11.1

ttulcin

Your latest update does not play nice with latest MS Word for Mac:

When I try to insert a new citation, I am asked whether I want to modify an existing citation. The program then leads me through VIRTUALLY ALL OF THEM, with no means of escape. (Caps for emphasis, not for yelling). I already no longer use Zotero to cite, but rather to serve as my running bibliography, but alas, it apparently doesn't even serve this function. Now I need to find another means of doing so, and to export my Zotero bibliography to another engine.

adomasven

There are various ways you can help us help you, if that is what you want. See https://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_problems and https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_troubleshooting#debugging_broken_documents

Do note that Zotero is free to use, using the syncing and paying for storage are entirely optional. The majority of the discussions are moderated by people who volunteer their time and experience (even though I happen to be a developer) and we understand the frustration, but please stick to the forum etiquette.

ttulcin

I would rather pay, and not have to constantly worry about fixes. I believe my forum etiquette is just fine--voicing a complaint is not a breach of etiquette. I do not want to waste my time taking screenshots, etc.--this is not the purpose of technology. It is to help, not hinder, serious research. That being said, I will try to fix using the links provided. Thank you.

adomasven

@ttulcin The issue you are seeing may have been introduced by the document processor integration bugfix in Zotero 5.0.42. It would be of great help if you could try the Zotero Beta and see if the problem persists. If it does you can continue using it and we will eventually move the fix into the main release. If it does not help, could you produce a Debug ID from the Zotero Beta?

1. In the Help menu, go to Debug Output Logging and select Enable.
2. Attempt to add a citation to the document and wait until you get the dialog.
3. Before doing anything else, return to Help → Debug Output Logging and click Submit Output, which will disable logging and submit the output to zotero.org. A window should pop up containing a Debug ID. Click “Copy to Clipboard” and paste the Debug ID into this forum thread.

Afterwards, you can temporarily revert to Zotero 5.0.41.

adomasven

That being said, what the current version of Zotero does is it goes over all the citations in the document on its first interaction with it after a restart (which is not exactly a bug, but undesirable behaviour that we will revert). If you are getting these prompts, it means that you either have copied these citations from some other document and they have not been updated to match your current citation style or you have indeed modified them by hand (which you may or may not want to do as these modifications will prevent Zotero from updating your citations). You may actually want to go over these prompts and click "No" for them so that your citations are updated in line with your citation style.

ttulcin

This is what I get:

You have modified this citation since Zotero generated it. Do you want to keep your modifications and prevent future updates?

Clicking "Yes" will prevent Zotero from updating this citation if you add additional citations, switch styles, or modify the item to which it refers. Clicking "No" will erase your changes.

Original: Barnet Hartson, Sensationalizing the Jewish Question: Anti-Semitic Trials and the Press in the Early German Empire (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 190–93.
Modified: Barnet Hartson, Sensationalizing the Jewish Question: Anti-Semitic Trials and the Press in the Early German Empire (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 190–93

ttulcin

I got this right after:

Zotero experienced an error updating your document.

The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error -1712.) @[displayAlert:document.m:186]

ttulcin

adomasven:

Thanks; I'll try with the Beta first, and then the "No" option. I'll let you all know what happens.

fbennett

@adomasven I'll be meeting with a series of our finalists today, to set them up with the latest (Juris-M, but a build based on current Zotero Beta) and prep them for our collaborative bib review process. In an initial meeting on Monday using a 5.0.41-based client, we hit the global-update issue. I'll report separately on how we fare with the revised version.

ttulcin

The beta worked like a charm! I do need to modify citations manually to account for transliteration conventions. If you can, please integrate this change into the new version to stop the global update. Thanks.

fbennett

@ttulcin Juris-M is designed to produce cites with embedded transliterations, and to update them automatically. If that functionality is of interest, feel free to give it a try. (JM is sync-compatible with Zotero, and will not modify the Zotero database on your machine if you install it.)

adomasven

@ttulcin you might also get these prompts if you insert a citation that will require disambiguation from one already in the text or if you ever need to refresh citations (with the refresh button) for whatever reason. You can also click "yes" when you get these prompts and Zotero will leave those citations alone in the document for you until you edit them the citation dialog again. You can also try Juris-M as suggested above.

We will include in the change in the next version of Zotero (5.0.44) probably sometime this week. I'll post here when it is in.

@fbennett 5.0.41 shouldn't have the global-update issue in it. Other things might trigger it, like enabling automatic citation updates after having disabled it or refreshing the document. If you see something unexpected do post on the forums and/or email doc snippets to support@zotero.org, because the integration is still a bit unstable after the delayed citing mode update.

fbennett

@adomasven Will do. I think in my "41" build of JM I must have jumped the gun and included the upcoming integration change. Anyway, more news later!

dstillman

@ttulcin: Multiple people have asked you to adjust the way you post here, years apart, so please do so. If you're experiencing a problem, just report it like everyone else in these forums, and we'll do our best to fix it. If you can't manage to do that, I'd ask you not to post here.

The 2015 thread of yours appears to be for basically the same issue, and as @adamsmith explained there, while there are occasional reports of this, it's not a general problem, so something about the way you're working is causing you much more trouble than other people experience. In some cases that's related to an interaction with Track Changes, which might also be the case for you. But it sounds like you're widely editing the citations you insert, and while the latest update might exacerbate the appearance of warning messages when doing that, this really just isn't how Zotero's word processor integration is meant to be used. As @adomasven explains, even with the previous behavior, which we'll restore, you'll still get those notices at various times. So if you're going to edit many of your citations to add transliterations, try Juris-M or just keep your references in a Zotero collection and generate a static bibliography at the end that you then edit.

(And just to be clear, this has nothing to do with Zotero's being free, and we're not "tinkering" — the change here was part of a bug fix for an unrelated issue stemming from a recent much-requested, long-beta-tested new feature (which, for what it's worth, you might be interested in using).)

ttulcin

dstillman--
(1) I rarely post
(2) If it's the same issue, please fix it so that it doesn't repeat
(3) I am sure there are many other people out there with the same problem; perhaps they just give up and leave Zotero
(4) A little constructive criticism should not be such a big deal--but apologies, if I have upset you. It's just very aggravating to have a system go haywire with references when one is rushing to get something out. A well-tuned system doesn't do that. I understand Zotero is open-source, and I really appreciate that, but perhaps by requiring a small charge from each user--say $10 a year--you would have more resources to avoid these sorts of issues.
(5) Thank you for the updates.

ttulcin

Questions:

(1) Because of the way I work--e.g., a committee member wants no ibids. until the final recension--I already use Zotero solely as a running bibliography. (I don't use track changes). After the first footnoted reference for a particular source, I insert the remaining manually. So, if I switch over to Juris-M, (a) how do I integrate my Zotero library; and (b) what about the part of the document already embedded with Zotero?

(2) If I stay with Zotero, I'm a little confused. If the auto-update runs again, and I don't want to change anything, do I press "No"? or "Yes"? It seems the responders state both options.

Thanks.

dstillman

(I'll just note for posterity, in case this comes up again, that @ttulcin edited their original post, which was initially far more aggressive and belittling of the project and its developers.)

@ttulcin: You're fundamentally misunderstanding the problem here, which is why you've had the same problem for years, and why you're having so much more trouble than most other people. Other than the change in refresh frequency, which Adomas explained and which is reverted in the beta, this isn't something to be fixed. The whole point of Zotero's word processor integration is that it updates your citations for you as you work based on all the things that can affect them. If you're editing the citations by hand after it inserts them, it can't do that — all it can do is ask you whether 1) you really meant to edit them and want to keep them that way, which will prevent Zotero from being able to update them going forward or 2) you want to erase your changes and have Zotero continue to keep them updated. So if you're widely editing the citations, there's really not much point in using the word processor plugin, and it's just going to cause you frustration. Manual editing for a few select citations — and then saying "Yes" to keep the changes — can occasionally be useful, but the proper workflow is to edit them in Zotero itself or by using the fields in the word processor plugin (prefix, suffix, etc.). If that's not possible for the kind of changes you're making, you can try Juris-M if that does what you need, or you can just organize things in Zotero itself and occasionally generate static bibliographies that you then edit. The reason you're constantly fighting against the software is that the way you're using it just doesn't make sense.

fbennett

@ttulcin If you are entering all references but the first manually, and you are finding that to be a satisfactory workflow apart from interactions with the reference manager, you might consider simply doing all references manually, and manually maintaining a separate list of references contained in the document. That seems rather cumbersome to me personally, but everyone does have their own working style, and it would eliminate a layer of complexity that seems to be a cause of frustration. (Zotero would still be useful in an all-manual workflow for adding pre-formatted citations via drag-and-drop.)

ttulcin

@stillman:
Thank you for the advice. FWIW, I did not "demean or belittle." I merely expressed frustration with a feature that has caused me much delay. Again, I much appreciate Zotero. At the same time, I suggested that you charge us a de minimis fee for the service so that it can be of even greater use. Please don't be so sensitive; frustration w/a Zotero feature is not a personal indictment of you, or anyone on this forum. Though I am quite technologically proficient, I have encountered this problem too many times to mention, and now I understand why. For this reason, I only use Zotero for the first footnoted reference, and then manually insert the rest. In essence, I use Z for my running bibliography, for which it functions quite well.

ttulcin

FWIW, the Juris-M link for Mac updates yields a 404 error message. But thanks anyway.

fbennett

That was fixed some hours ago, but you are very welcome.

dstillman

Just so there's a record of it, these are the lines @ttulcin deleted from their original post:

Thank you, Zotero, for making the dissertation process harder than it already is. Why don't you stop tinkering with the app, and leave well enough alone?

Why don't you close down, clean up your act, and then charge for the new, improved version? Then, perhaps, you would be accountable for all the untold hours of anguish that you have caused many academic writers. Thanks a lot!