Failure to add and failed popup (intermittent)
Zotero 2.0b4 and Firefox 3.0.10 on Windows Vista
1) Right clicking on selected text and "Create Zotero item and note from selection" used to bring up a popup for adding tags and choosing a folder for the item.
2) for some time, the popup has been too quick to click on to add tags. Most often there isn't a popup.
3) Despite no popup, the item and note were added.
4) However some time in the past several months items have not been added. How many is unknown. The failure to capture is not consistent. Unfortunately, there is no notice if the capture has failed.
The failed popup occurs when the item is captured so that can't be used as a means to sort/tag added items as they are captured. I don't know how long the failure to capture has occurred. The failed tag popup has been on-going for some time so many items cannot be tagged as they are added.
At one time, Zotero would freeze FF as it was adding items so I could use that as an indicator it was working. That rarely still occurs.
If I noticed Zotero was having trouble capturing, I used to be able to set NoScript options for the website to allow everything. However, that has not always been needed. My Roboform is the latest version 6.9.94.0 and I use the roboformtaskbaricon and Mozilla adaptor is 6.9.93
[Evernote's popup is very useful in its duration and the options it allows for marking the item.]
1) Right clicking on selected text and "Create Zotero item and note from selection" used to bring up a popup for adding tags and choosing a folder for the item.
2) for some time, the popup has been too quick to click on to add tags. Most often there isn't a popup.
3) Despite no popup, the item and note were added.
4) However some time in the past several months items have not been added. How many is unknown. The failure to capture is not consistent. Unfortunately, there is no notice if the capture has failed.
The failed popup occurs when the item is captured so that can't be used as a means to sort/tag added items as they are captured. I don't know how long the failure to capture has occurred. The failed tag popup has been on-going for some time so many items cannot be tagged as they are added.
At one time, Zotero would freeze FF as it was adding items so I could use that as an indicator it was working. That rarely still occurs.
If I noticed Zotero was having trouble capturing, I used to be able to set NoScript options for the website to allow everything. However, that has not always been needed. My Roboform is the latest version 6.9.94.0 and I use the roboformtaskbaricon and Mozilla adaptor is 6.9.93
[Evernote's popup is very useful in its duration and the options it allows for marking the item.]
I don't really understand the rest of what you're saying. Specifics (as in, the actual text that displays on the things you're referring to) would help.
When the popup fails there is no text. When Zotero fails to add item there is no text.
When popup works it is labelled "Saving Zotero Item" at the top of the box with the first line of the item as text in the box.
Again, you'll need to provide specific steps to reproduce the problem—literally, click by click instructions, with every single thing you're doing, clicking on, etc.—as well as what exactly you expect to happen that's not happening. Because right now, I'm totally lost.
* Right click mouse. Menu popsup.
* Select "create Zotero item and note from selection" OR select "Add selection to Zotero Note" if an item and note has already been created. (use left mouse button)
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When it works, popup shows (sometimes cursor shows a waiting icon) and item and note is added to Zotero.
Item and Note can be added without the popup.
Recently it also happens that item and note are not added and no popup occurs.
As best I remember, if the popup box was clicked, then the entire Zotero pane would open for adding tags, etc.
Is there any way to fix if Zotero is creating the item and note from the right click menu? or why it doesn't always work? It's very critical to the way I use Zotero.
You might want to verify that the items aren't in your Zotero library at all, and not just missing from the collection where you're looking for them.
If you can't reproduce this, but you notice that it has happened and you haven't yet restarted Firefox, send in an error report using Report Errors under the gear menu and post the Report ID here.
* Highlight text to be added to Zotero
* Right click mouse. Menu popsup.
* Select "create Zotero item and note from selection" OR select "Add selection to Zotero Note" if an item and note has already been created. (use left mouse button)
Items that actually have been created in Zotero show in Zotero when I bring up the Zotero window and highlight "my library" the topmost level. I then sort by "date added".
When Zotero isn't working correctly, the item I had requested to be created does not show in "my library".
There is no indication given that Zotero failed to create the item. [Often Zotero gives no indication that an item was created, either.]
2) I then switched NOScript to allow all of Zotero.org. Again, I highlithted text, right click, selected create item and note-- Zotero popup popped up as before. Then the waiting mouse icon showed up, the item and note was created, and several seconds after that, the waiting icon disappeared.
Seems to me that
* Zotero popup isn't a reliable indicator of success or failure.
* NoScript doesn't always need to allow all of a site to get Zotero to create an item.
* Zotero doesn't reliably create items.
Also make sure you have the latest version of NoScript. If not, upgrade and see if it still happens. The popup for translator saving (i.e., when you click the address bar icon) is designed to show a message on failure, but we've never actually seen the save methods you're using fail, so that popup isn't currently designed to show a failure message. You have another extension enabled that makes major changes to the underlying architecture of Firefox and that has caused problems in the past, and disabling it makes the problem go away, and this is the conclusion you reach?
If you provide enough information for us to be able to reproduce this, we can see if it's fixable on our end, but there's no guarantee that it will be.
As I noted above -- "2) I then switched NOScript to allow all of Zotero.org. Again, I highlithted text, right click, selected create item and note-- Zotero popup popped up as before. Then the waiting mouse icon showed up, the item and note was created, and several seconds after that, the waiting icon disappeared."
I did the test on zotero.org I have the latest version of NoScript. In the above example, when NoScript allowed Zotero.org, the item was created correctly and the popup popped up.
I almost never use the translator because few websites I document use them.
The popup doesn't always popup even when items are created.
Zotero doesn't have good and bad moods, so something systematic is going on.
The question is - are you willing to put in a little effort and do your work as part of the open source community in figuring out what it is, or do you just want to complain and waste people's time?
[Oh, and you are welcome for my discovery that Zotero has a feature you didn't know existed.]
Dan, on the other hand, is the lead developer, who has been incredibly patient in answering your posts and trying to help you - unfortunately you decided to write snarky unhelpful posts instead of trying to provide the type of information that might actually let him help you.
Sometimes an item and note are created.
Sometimes they aren't.
Sometimes the Zotero popup pops up. Sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes, even if a Zotero popup occurs, the item and note are NOT created.
What may or may not be related are the empty items in my Zotero library that I just discovered. These contain only the date and time of creation but there is no content. Several (dozen) have occurred since March, according to the time stamps, however I see only 3 from June and July of 2008.