Zotero Problem with "ibid." references

Hey, I am encountering yet another issue with Zotero.

When referencing from the same source, the second citation should be: 'idib. 171'
Instead it looks like this (and it is underlined with a dotted line:

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Classics (London: Penguin, 2009), 171.
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Classics (London: Penguin, 2009), 175.
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Classics (London: Penguin, 2009), 171.
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Classics (London: Penguin, 2009), 175.
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Classics (London: Penguin, 2009), 175.

Thanks.
  • P.S. I have tried restarting everything (word, zotero, computer).
  • What style are you using? And if you click Document Preferences in the Zotero tab in Word, is the box for Automatic Updates checked?
  • More details: https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-5-0-36/#faster-citing-in-large-documents

    Note that this is something you either would've had to have disabled manually or would've had to agree to after Zotero prompted you if an update took more than 15 seconds. I'm curious if you recall which was the case here.
  • Yes, the Automatic Updates box is checked.
    I found a way to bypass the problem, although it is still happening. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I have been editing the document since March so, whenever I am adding new citations it does this. Anyway, the trick is to open the document, make a new citation and then hit the "refresh" button. I don't know whether this is what the "Automatic Updates" thing is supposed to do.

    I now have a new (and hopefuly the last problem!). I am trying to insert my bibliography, but the list does not appear. It's a thesis so the document is large (it's about 214 pages). So, clicking the "insert bibliography" doesn't work because it freezes Microsoft Word.

    I either will have to do it chapter by chapter and then put them altogether. But I hope there's a way to do it automatically.

    Do you have any idea?
    Many thanks.
  • This is the message that comes up when Word freezes:


    "Zotero experienced an error updating your document.
    The operation couldn't be completed.
    (OSStatus error-1712.)
    @[setTextRaw:field.m:401]
  • Could you produce a Debug ID from Zotero?

    1. In the Help menu, go to Debug Output Logging and select Enable.
    2. Attempt to insert the bibliography in Word and wait for it to fail
    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.
  • OP, when did this start happening? Are you using Chicago style, or is that something else?

    Is it possible you started your document in Chicago 16th and continued to Chicago 17th, where the "ibid" convention is not used?
  • @wilkenson -- no, these aren't the shortened citations that Chicago 17th would produce instead of ibid. They're full (firs note) citations that Zotero inserts when the document isn't updating automatically.
  • Good catch. Thanks for the correction.
  • Adomasven: I hope I followed the steps for the Debug ID correctly. This is it D1062764081.

    Wilkenson: I am using Chicago Full-note.
    My experience with Zotero is that it is excellent when it comes to basic use. During my first years of PhD, when my documents were small (a few pages long) I never had any problem.

    But as the documents became larger (more than 40-50 pages) and more complex, with comments from supervisors (through track changes etc), Zotero started crashing at least once a day. I haven't been able to figure out why.
    Another colleague using Zotero reported the same problems.

    It is a great tool for BA and MA students, but for PhD work it is more frustrating than convenient.



  • FWIW, I and many others here wrote their doctoral theses using Zotero, and there a many books written with Zotero, so this is not a general experience. That said, Word also isn't very good for large documents, so I avoid documents with >40 pages as best as I can, assembling longer documents at the last moment from chapters/sections.
  • Agreed. I don't want to argue with you, but my personal experience has been very frustrating. Sure, my view it's not universal, but the 'many others have wriiten their theses on Zotero' doesn't make yours either.

    The thing is that in small documents chapters/sections, as I said, Zotero works perfect.
    But in small documents you don't need to rely on the softward too much. It's in the large documents where you really depend on the program to do what it's supposed to do. I mostly work with small documents too, but when you're completing the dissertation that's when you do want a large document when things are working and not to spend an hour to export your bibliography.

    Maybe Zotero works well with technologically literate individuals, in which case it would have been good to know in advance, so that I could have chosen a different software.

    Last, if Zotero is not great with Microsoft Word would have been also good to know with what kind of text software it works best.


  • Many thanks for your comments. And sorry for my tone. It's not personal.
  • @marita_vig You've submitted this Debug ID before you received the error message from Zotero by the looks of it, and while it was still processing the citations in your document. You have over 700, which is huge and will take a while. You can see Zotero working on your citations if you open the debug output window through Help -> Debug Output Logging -> View Output.

    If you're on Word 365/2016, it is possible that the document update might fail or only succeed after a few attempts. This is due to the newest version of Word being slower and tending to crash with the Zotero plugin. Unfortunately we currently do not have any good solutions for very big documents on Word for Mac 2016, but if you are able to get hold of a Windows PC or Word for Mac 2011 it might work better.
  • Thanks adomasven. I will try it again later.
    And thanks for the advice.


  • What I meant was that Word in general isn't good for long, complex documents. If at all possible I'd recommend writing every chapter in a separate document and then assembling those at the end.
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