Keep getting I have modifiedthe citation

rutyggi
I am using LibreOffice 7.3.5.

I keep getting "You have modified this citation since Zotero generated it" error (although I did not modify it).

If I click no, it will insert a new citation afterwards (what it thinks was the original citation, and re-ask the same question (immediately).

Then it does it again.

It goes like that for 4 or 5 times.

If I delete the citation and re-insert it, it will go over it again.
  • rutyggi
    I think it has to do with track changes.

    To fix it:

    1. Disable track changes
    2. Remove troublesome citations
    3. Refresh the page. If Zotero throws the error, keep clicking "Yes"
    4. Do step (3) until Zotero throws no more errors
    5. Insert citations back again
  • dstillman
    In LibreOffice, it's also fairly easy to accidentally modify a citation — there's a longstanding bug where if you start typing while the cursor is at the end of a citation, it will put the text within the citation, thereby modifying it. (We take steps to avoid this immediately after you insert a citation, but this can happen at other points.)
    3. Refresh the page. If Zotero throws the error, keep clicking "Yes"
    You want to say No, not Yes. If you click Yes Zotero will no longer update the citation as necessary. If there's a problem, delete the citations and reinsert it — don't say Yes and leave a broken, non-updating citation in the document.
  • rutyggi
    If you say "No", Zotero will insert a new citation at the end of the broken one, and repeat the message error. If you say "No" again, it will do it again. For 5/6 times.

    What I did was press "Yes", and then remove the citation.
  • dstillman
    It's certainly not supposed to do that — "No" should revert your citation to the original form and continue with other citations. But depending on how exactly the citations are corrupted, that might not happen. Can you email an except of the document that allows us to reproduce the problem to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread?
  • rutyggi
    I have sent you the document and a video showing the bug.
  • adomasven
    The document you sent us contains multiple places where there are tracked changes that are neither accepted nor rejected. This will cause Zotero issues, especially when tracked changes are in Zotero citations. Disabling change tracking without resolving the already tracked changes in the document where they affect Zotero citations will not fix this issue. You can see existing tracked changes by either clicking on the "Show Tracked Changes" button in the track changes toolbar (the icon with the eye), or in View -> Show Tracked Changes.
  • rutyggi
    ok, thanks!

    So, what is the correct way to insert citation when we track changes?

    Insert the citation, and immediately accept the change?

    How my coauthor know that I have inserted the citation if I accept my own changes?

    Can you describe the algorithm I have to follow to insert a citation?

    Thanks again for looking into this
  • adomasven
    Sorry, but citing with track changes enabled will produce these errors. You can notify your colleagues by adding a comment when you change citations, but you should not even be editing or inserting citations with track changes enabled. This doesn't work on any document processor, not just LibreOffice. You should disable track changes when insterting/editing Zotero citations.
  • rutyggi
    So the algorithm to insert a citation seems to be the following:
    1. Disable track changes
    2. Insert the citation
    3. Re-enable track changes

    Wouldn't it make sense for the Zotero add-on to do 1 and 3 automatically?
  • adomasven
    It would and I don't know why we don't do it. A quick search in the LibreOffice API docs reveals that there doesn't seem to be a way to control that, but the LibreOffice API is kind of complicated and I wouldn't be surprised if it's hidden somewhere.
  • rutyggi
    Does this help? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9486752/ooo-uno-java-trackedchanges-how-to-accept-or-hide-tracked-changes-when-doc
  • dstillman
    That doesn't sound like the same thing — we need to disable track changes, not accept all changes or hide them.

    (Just to note, we do this already in Word.)
  • rutyggi
    Does this help? https://www.openoffice.org/api/docs/common/ref/com/sun/star/text/GenericTextDocument.html#RecordChanges
  • adomasven
    Yes it does, thanks. I've created a ticket to track this.
  • rutyggi
    Any news on this? This is preventing me from working effectively
  • rutyggi
    The issue is now fixed on GitHub
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