Google docs - citations spontaneously unlinking

2
  • Yes. I am using Chrome, and the connector is installed.

    I just went through and relinked and corrected all of the broken and stalled links, which I am hoping will help me isolate the problem.
  • I have been working in the problem document and thought everything was a-ok so I did not have the Debug Logging turned on. I just scrolled up to an earlier portion of the Google Doc and discovered that approximately 11 links, all from the same source and all in a row, have all unlinked.
  • Can you use the Google Docs version history to see whether there was some sort of big edit to that part of the document at some point? Note that the point at which the unlinked citations appeared is not the same. Zotero only notices unlinked citations when you perform an action on a document, but they will have been unlinked by some previous edit of the document.
  • @adomasven Thank you for sticking with me on this and for the great recommendation! I went back through my version history to try to pinpoint when the citations unlinked.

    Based on version history, the action that seems to have unlinked the citations was adding a citation from a new source much later in the document. The citation that I added occurs several pages after the citations that became unlinked, but it appears that when I added this citation perhaps Zotero "refreshed" the rest of the document? The citation directly prior to the group of citations that became unlinked updated to be a shortened version of the citation, and then boom: the next 12 or so citations (all from the same source) unlinked.

    Does this make sense? Thank you again.
  • If you restore the document to that point and refresh the document does the unlinking still happen? What about if you insert that same citation that you believe has caused this? (You should probably create a copy of your current version of the document just in case before proceeding, although the copy won't have the version history).
  • @adomasven Thank you! I went back through my versions. I found and restored a version directly prior to the citations unlinking and recreated the unlinking. I cut and pasted a section of text to earlier in my document, and the citations unlinked. I was working within the same Google document.

    I also tried to make sure I had my debugging log turned on: The Debug ID is D1485268959. I am hoping that will report what happened. Thank you!
  • I am having the same issue with unlinking citations. I am the only one in the document. It is happening under 2 circumstances. 1-when I copy and paste a section elsewhere. Or when the google doc has been open and unused for awhile. I get an error code ha3Y42.
  • @devrajoy: Could we also get a Debug ID from the Zotero Connector from you for this happening? Make sure you've reverted to a version of the document where the citations are OK after refreshing, and then enable logging and perform the operation that causes them to become unlinked, and then Refresh to trigger the warning. (Note, as we say above, that it's the operation before the Refresh that's causing this, not the Refresh itself. The Refresh simply detects the problem and shows the warning.)
  • Did it. When I went to the connector step, I was able to already see that there were errors being reported. 2003426825
  • edited November 29, 2020
    Well that didn't take long...D290080853
    was doing some rewrites that did NOT re-order refs. Added a citation that also did not reorder refs, then 4 refs became unlinked.

    connector ext report 490768589
  • @mihussai, @mstyang, @devrajoy: You all have Google's "Google Docs Offline" extension installed. If you disable that and reload Google Docs, are you still able to reproduce this problem?

    @dhackler, @jcdonner: You didn't provide Report IDs or Debug IDs from the Zotero Connector, but if you also have "Google Docs Offline" installed, that would be good to know.
  • I changed prefs to "not available offline" refreshed page, refreshed zotero, refs are still unlinked. Then went to docs extension in chrome and turned it off, refreshed page and zotero again, still unlinked.
  • edited November 29, 2020
    No, that's not relevant. Once they're unlinked, they're unlinked and would need to be manually relinked by you. The question is whether you can still reproduce this problem of working citations (that don't show as unlinked after a Refresh) becoming unlinked with the Google Docs Offline extension completely disabled — as in, uninstalled or disabled in the Extensions pane, not just turned off for a document.
  • i was trying to relink and was sent to trouble shooting and found this "If Track Changes is enabled when you insert or modify a Zotero citation, it may mark many or all of the Zotero citations in your document as changed or cause field codes to be displayed. On rare occasions, Track Changes may cause Zotero to think a citation is corrupted. If you had Track Changes enabled previously, try accepting all changes to see if that resolves the issue." google docs automatically tracks changes, and I want it to.
  • edited November 29, 2020
    It says specifically "disable the Track Changes feature in Word/LibreOffice" — nothing to do with Google Docs. (It's also no longer likely to be an issue in Word.)
  • and just for good measure, as i'm trying to relink and having issues...
    Report ID: 1286120372

    debug won't let me send report, but took a screenshot of the javascrtipt.

    This first started for me when I shared a doc with my advisor and they made "suggestions" when I figured out it was a problem that she didn't have the extension or shared library, I unshared, accepted all suggestions and was able to get back on track. I copied that doc into a new doc and the problems continue. FWIW I will need to reshare for "suggestions" later.
  • edited November 29, 2020
    You still have the Google Docs Offline extension installed there. If you've disabled it, you should restart Chrome and provide another Debug ID for any error you're getting with that disabled.

    For what it's worth, while copying small numbers of individual citations between documents should work, I wouldn't particularly recommend trying to copy the entire contents of one Google Docs document to another. The way to do that reliably is with the "Make a Copy" function in Google Docs.
  • @mstyang Note that if you went to the point directly before Zotero turned your citations red to indicate that they are unlinked - that's the wrong point. As dstillman noted above (and so have I, before), that is only the point where Zotero had "noticed" that the citations have become unlinked. Some earlier edit to those citations would have caused the unlinking, you would have to go to that earlier point and perform whatever the operation was. So in the version history you need to look to some point older from where Zotero turned the citations red, where those same citations (and/or surrounding text) had been edited (e.g. copy-pasted).
  • Yes, I used the "make copy" function. Sorry I wasn't clear. I upgraded my operating system a few days ago. Today is the first day working on the document since. Everything has been fine, including moving blocks of text that did not reorder refs. I just tried adding a ref that required re-ordering. 2 refs became unlinked and the reordering did not occur.
    chrome connector error report #1364420589
    zotero error report :1792642684
  • @devrajoy: Note that that's not a Debug ID, and "Google Docs Offline" is still installed. (We can't tell if it's enabled from the Report ID alone.) See what I said above:
    You still have the Google Docs Offline extension installed there. If you've disabled it, you should restart Chrome and provide another Debug ID for any error you're getting with that disabled.
  • All of the changes I made to the system before must have come undone when I updated OS. But it just happened again.

    debug D900181022
    zotero connector report ID 811785051

    how far prior to the unlinking, do you think the problem is?
  • You keep providing Report IDs from the Zotero Connector and Debug IDs from Zotero. Those aren't useful. Again, we need a Debug ID from the Zotero Connector for this problem occurring with "Google Docs Offline" disabled.

    All I can do here is repeat what I said above, which still applies:
    Could we also get a Debug ID from the Zotero Connector from you for this happening? Make sure you've reverted to a version of the document where the citations are OK after refreshing, and then enable logging and perform the operation that causes them to become unlinked, and then Refresh to trigger the warning. (Note, as we say above, that it's the operation before the Refresh that's causing this, not the Refresh itself. The Refresh simply detects the problem and shows the warning.)
  • I see, I thought I needed error report from connector and debug zotero

    I just relinked and refreshed and it's fine for now.
  • Everything has been fine, including moving blocks of text that did not reorder refs. I just tried adding a ref that required re-ordering.
    I assume you use a numeric style and when you say "reordering" you expect the citation numbers to change based on the position in the text. To give you a better picture of what is happening:
    1. When you copy a piece of text in the document and paste it somewhere else, the Zotero Connector detects if any citations were pasted too and attempts to manually relink/store them in the doc (which is why sometimes when you paste a piece of text you should see a "Please wait... Zotero is updating your document" overlay). At this point the citations would be "in the document", but not updated for the location in which they are.
    2. When you perform any Zotero action (inserting a citation, bibliography, refreshing the document) and Zotero notices that some citations have been pasted, at which point it updates them too. If, however, something went wrong at step 1, then at this point those citations that failed to paste properly would be marked as unlinked.

    So to debug this you need to use the version history to go back to the point right before any possible big modification to the unlinked citations and see whether they still unlink if you perform a Zotero action. There could be some other reason that we have not accounted for, than a failing copy-paste as described in 1 which causes the citations to unlink but it would still have to do with editing of the part of the text where the unlinking citations are.
  • Hi, I seem to have the same problem with copying the citations from one Google doc to another Google doc. Sometimes some citations become unlinked when I am working in the same document, an all citations become unlinked when I copy a paragraph with citations to another Google doc. I have a debug form D987934611. Any suggestions how I may resolve this. Copying between documents is crucial for my work. And copying the whole document is not an option while I only need a section at the time.
  • @paulbosma: For this we'd want a Debug ID from the Zotero Connector, not from Zotero. As noted above, make sure you've reverted to a version where the citations are not unlinked, confirmed by refreshing and not getting the warning or seeing the citations in red.
  • @dstillman : Ok, I just reproduced the unlinking again and here is a debug ID from the Connector D1048437330. I made sure the citations were ok and refreshed without any unlinking before I copied them. I hope to hear from you.
  • Can you reproduce the issue consistently by copying the same part of the text into a new Google Docs document?
  • @adomasven yes I can. Copying x amount of text and citations results in the unlinking of the citations. Unless I make a copy of the whole document in Drive, but that is only useful one time.
  • Can you make a copy of this document, trim it to only the part that fails when copied, test copying to ensure it is still broken and share it with support@zotero.org?
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