Hang during Mendeley import

dstillman

This discussion was created from comments split from: 769119084 import from Mendeley consumes all available disk space.

MichelleCain

This sounds vaguely similar to a problem I am having. I am trying to import my mendeley database to a new install of zotero on Mac (I tried the normal version and the beta and the same happens). It has the importing dialog open, and it just hangs there after importing 419 items. My laptop has plenty of space on it, so it hasn't run out of disk space. There isn't an out of hand amount of disk usage in the zotero folder, only <5GB, although this is larger than my Mendeley folder already. So it sounds like something is going wrong.

MichelleCain

And further - I definitely have duplicates. When I check the containing folder, there are often multiple instances of the same pdf. So there aren't 419 different items, as many are duplicate.

MichelleCain

@dstillman I have upgraded to the beta and it made no difference - it still hung mid import.

dstillman

If you haven't yet restarted Zotero, could you provide a Report ID?

And then if you could restart Zotero and provide a Debug ID for an import attempt that hangs, that would be helpful.

MichelleCain

I tried importing from Mendeley but at 419 items (many of which are duplicates) it seemed to stop. A box appeared to ask if I wanted to open a particular pdf, and I'm not sure why. I killed the import and the log is below.
This was with the beta on Mac, and the same happened with the release version.

Any suggestions?


[JavaScript Error: "/Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/pdfinfo returned exit status 1" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/utilities_internal.js" line: 516}]

[JavaScript Error: "/Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/pdftotext returned exit status 1" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/utilities_internal.js" line: 516}]

[extra errors removed — D.S]

version => 5.0.50-beta.2+d38d55e2b, platform => MacIntel, oscpu => Intel Mac OS X 10.13, locale => en-US, appName => Zotero, appVersion => 5.0.50-beta.2+d38d55e2b, extensions => Zotero LibreOffice Integration (5.0.14.SA.5.0.50-beta.2+d38d55e2b, extension), Zotero Word for Mac Integration (5.0.15.SA.5.0.50-beta.2+d38d55e2b, extension)

dstillman

No need for a new thread. See my last post above re: a Debug ID.

MichelleCain

Apologies, I didn't know this thread existed when I posted my comment, I thought it had just been deleted off the original thread.

I tried to do the debug reporting, but as the import never finishes, it doesn't work. I tried to submit the debug output while the import was ongoing, but it did nothing. Import stuck at 419 again and now I can't really do anything with the window (not responding).

dstillman

I tried to submit the debug output while the import was ongoing, but it did nothing.

What do you mean by this? Which part did nothing?

If submitting doesn't work, are you able to view the output? If so, you can save it to a file and email it to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread, but that shouldn't be necessary.

MichelleCain

it literally did nothing. i clicked the button to submit but nothing popped up, nothing on my screen changed. it was as if i didn't click the option to submit.

i then went to view output and after a very long time, there was a window with the outpiut. i clicked submit output and it now says error submitting output in red on the window. i don't know this error is just because i'm on a patchy internet connection. i can try again from a better wifi connection later, but if it still doesn't work i can email it in.

dstillman

All right, we've hopefully fixed the problem you were seeing the latest Zotero beta. Can you delete the Zotero data directory, upgrade to 5.0.52-beta.2 (or later), and try again?

MichelleCain

I downloaded Zotero-5.0.52-beta.2+2a7f31813.dmg and it still hangs after 419 items. The size of the folder isn't currently growing like it was before though. Before it hangs, a window pops up to say that I have chosen to open one of the references (I didn't) and it gives me options to open / save / save to zotero. I have tried open and I've tried save to zotero (this was happening before as well). Saving to zotero failed (it gave a failure message). I am not sure if that has anything to do with it.

I did an error report while the import is still 'hanging' at 419 items: 2019928438

dstillman

Yeah, that popup is definitely relevant. This could happen if there was a .pdf file in Mendeley that was really an HTML file, say from an authentication failure while downloading.

Can you upgrade to the latest beta and try again? You'll still get that popup (which you can cancel), but the import process will hopefully then continue. (We'll try to fix it not to show a popup as well, but that's secondary.)