Unable to add/Very slow add of citations

glythgoe

I have had this issue increasingly lately. It takes nearly 3 minutes to add a citation and if I try to work on the document while the Quick Format Citation bar slowly works, it comes back with an error. I have 1095 footnotes so far and more will need to be added. It's so frustrating I'm nearly at the point of unlinking citations and doing the rest manually which is just an unimaginably huge task with this thesis. Is it normal for zotero to get so slow at a certain point? What can I do to fix it?

This is the error report file for the most recent one:

[JavaScript Error: "The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error -1708.) @[setTextRaw:field.m:436]" {file: "file:///Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/Resources/extensions/zoteroMacWordIntegration@zotero.org/components/zoteroMacWordIntegration.js" line: 227}]

version => 5.0.85, platform => MacIntel, oscpu => Intel Mac OS X 10.14, locale => en-GB, appName => Zotero, appVersion => 5.0.85, extensions => ODF Scan for Zotero (2.0.43, extension), ZotFile (5.0.16, extension), Better BibTex for Zotero (5.2.20, extension), Zotero Word for Mac Integration (5.0.26.SA.5.0.85, extension), Zotero LibreOffice Integration (5.0.22.SA.5.0.85, extension)

dstillman

Updating citations can unfortunately be quite slow in Mac Word, but have you disabled "Automatically update citations" in the plugin's document preferences? You'll definitely want to do that in a large document.

https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-5-0-36/#faster-citing-in-large-documents

glythgoe

I also cannot update and refresh my citations. I use oscola and the footnote just below it should read ibid when I add one by the same author immediately before. This is also sending error messages that it cannot be completed, or just nothing happens at all.

Most recent error log:

[JavaScript Error: "The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error -1708.) @[setTextRaw:field.m:436]" {file: "file:///Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/Resources/extensions/zoteroMacWordIntegration@zotero.org/components/zoteroMacWordIntegration.js" line: 227}]

[JavaScript Error: "The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error -1728.) @[cleanup:document.m:1096]" {file: "file:///Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/Resources/extensions/zoteroMacWordIntegration@zotero.org/components/zoteroMacWordIntegration.js" line: 227}]

[JavaScript Error: "The operation couldn't be completed. (OSStatus error -1708.) @[selectField:field.m:341]" {file: "file:///Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/Resources/extensions/zoteroMacWordIntegration@zotero.org/components/zoteroMacWordIntegration.js" line: 227}]

version => 5.0.85, platform => MacIntel, oscpu => Intel Mac OS X 10.14, locale => en-GB, appName => Zotero, appVersion => 5.0.85, extensions => ODF Scan for Zotero (2.0.43, extension), ZotFile (5.0.16, extension), Better BibTex for Zotero (5.2.20, extension), Zotero Word for Mac Integration (5.0.26.SA.5.0.85, extension), Zotero LibreOffice Integration (5.0.22.SA.5.0.85, extension)

dstillman

See my message above.

After you've disabled that, when you refresh manually, you shouldn't do anything in the document before it completes.

If you get an error at that point, restart Zotero and try again. If you're still getting errors refreshing, see Debugging Broken Documents.

glythgoe

I have disabled automatic updates but it still takes the same length of time to add a new citation. And the refresh still doesn't do anything.

I have tried all the things on that debugging broken documents other than isolating the problematic citations. I don't have time for that. I have to submit this thesis soon. Also I think it is just the sheer volume that is problematic rather than a problematic citation. there should have been a warning that zotero does not work for large documents so if you're writing a PhD use something else.

dstillman

Many people use Zotero for dissertations and other large documents.

What citation style are you using?

If you're actually getting an error, you should follow the debugging steps. The whole point of the process is that, if there's a problematic citation, you should be able to isolate it in a few minutes, no matter how long your document is.

If it's just slow or unresponsive, we'd want to see a Debug ID for an example operation. You should restart Zotero first, if you haven't yet.

dstillman

Also, what version of Word is this?

glythgoe

I'm running the Debug ID at the moment. I clicked Refresh and it's been going for about 5 minutes. I'll submit the log but do you want me to post it here? It's huge.

my word is 16.35 Word for Mac.

dstillman

The Debug ID is just the number you get after submitting it.

glythgoe

OK I have run two operations. One is to refresh a citation, the second is to add one so what I submit has two operations I am having trouble with.

The Debug ID I submitted is: D571636420

dstillman

But what are the problems, exactly? Just slowness?

Re: the refresh, the point is that, while it can take a long time, with "Automatically update citations" disabled you should only need to do that at the very end, before you submit it (with a one or two test runs before then, when you can leave Word alone for a while, to make sure there won't be any problems closer to your deadline). And, as you can see from the output, it's not that it wasn't doing anything — it just can take a while.

The bigger problem would be if inserts are still slow, since you need to do that throughout. @adomasven will need to look at the log to evaluate the insert performance. It looks like retrieving existing fields from the document did take ~80 seconds, which is far from ideal. But after that there are a huge number of logged lines from Better BibTeX, so you should try with that disabled to see if it makes a difference.

glythgoe

With automatic updating citations disabled, inserts take the same length of time. I will look at how to disable BibTex

glythgoe

It is much quicker with BibTex disabled. See logs of insertions recently D1129530906

glythgoe

How long should a refresh take? Mine took forever this evening: Submitted with Debug ID D1860922038

dstillman

Retrieved 1015 fields

Integration: MacWord16-refresh:'/Applications/Microsoft Word.app/' complete in 1795.771s

See what I wrote above re: Refresh. In a huge document, it can take a very long time (30 minutes is not unexpected on Mac Word with 1000 citations), but you don't need to do it while working on the document.

adomasven

@glythgoe It does seem that on macOS Catalina Word integration is much faster than what it was on Mojave and below. If you need to submit this work relatively soon it might be risky to try to update the operating system on your main computer, but if you can get access to a different mac with Catalina or even a Windows computer then Zotero integration will work much faster there.

If above is not an option that your best bet is to keep citing with automatic citation updates turned off and refresh the document when finalizing given how time costly it is.