Site translator problem/no cause?

Jkindig
Zotero had been working great for me yesterday, but today it is giving me the "site translator" unable to capture message when I try to capture files from Proquest (which it is very compatible with). I went through the site translator trouble-shooting thing, and nothing seems to be wrong -- I have none of the wrong plugins but updated essential ones and disabled others anyway. I upgraded to zotero 3.0 for mozilla and the new standalone; my firefox is all up to date. Help?
  • Jkindig
    Also -- all my "fix broken translators" boxes in my zotero preferences are checked and up to date.
  • adamsmith
    provide a permalink from one of the proquest items where it fails (if you can't find a permalink, provide a description of how to get there).

    Make sure that basic translators such as amazon.com still work, e.g. this item: http://www.amazon.com/Zotero-Librarians-Researchers-Educators-ebook/dp/B00571L5S8/

    Also, is this on Firefox or another browser?
  • adamsmith
    oh, and and an error report ID as the last step on the translator troubleshooting page describes.
  • Jkindig
    Thanks, but can you tell me how to make a permalink, and what that even means?

    The basic translator works fine, and the file folder translator (what I had been using on Proquest) worked great yesterday.

    This is all on Firefox, yes, the latest version.
  • Jkindig
    Yes, here's a report ID from me trying it again just now: 1884204715
  • adamsmith
    a permalink is a link that remains stable. That might not exist for search results - essentially you need to give us a way to reproduce what you're seeing on your screen. You can assume that we have proquest access through our respective universities.
  • Simon
    The error is:
    [JavaScript Error: "value is not defined" {file: "/Users/Jessie/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xt1o7xmb.default/zotero/translators/ProQuest.js" line: 420}]
  • adamsmith
    Dan, Simon - what's in the error report?
  • Jkindig
    If you can tell me how to make a permalink I can certainly do it. This is the link to my search results, but I don't know that it is stable:

    http://search.proquest.com/results/134F316B11C1A9C1A38/1/$5bqueryType$3dadvanced:OS$3b+sortType$3drelevance$3b+searchTerms$3d$5b$3cAND$7ccitationBodyTags:pork+chop+hill$3e$5d$3b+searchParameters$3d$7bNAVIGATORS$3dpubtitlenav,decadenav$28filter$3d110$2f0$2f*,sort$3dname$2fascending$29,yearnav$28filter$3d1100$2f0$2f*,sort$3dname$2fascending$29,yearmonthnav$28filter$3d120$2f0$2f*,sort$3dname$2fascending$29,monthnav$28sort$3dname$2fascending$29,daynav$28sort$3dname$2fascending$29,+RS$3dOP,+chunkSize$3d50,+date$3dON:1959-4-30,+ftblock$3d194000+1+194001,+DUPLICATIONREMOVAL$3dtrue$7d$3b+metaData$3d$7bUsageSearchMode$3dAdvanced,+dbselections$3d1007155,+siteLimiters$3dRecordType,+FDB$3dNONE$7d$5d?accountid=14784
  • adamsmith
    As I say above: "That might not exist for search results - essentially you need to give us a way to reproduce what you're seeing on your screen. You can assume that we have proquest access through our respective universities."

    i.e. we need to know the search terms and the database you're using.
  • Jkindig
    I'm searching for articles in the New York Times database, which is run by Proquest. I don't see how the articles and search terms I'm looking for matter - I was having the same problem with zotero trying to capture about 10 different articles, using all different search terms (title, author, general, date) within the New York Times database. The only thing I can think is that it is specfic to the New York Times database -- I had no problem capturing an article from Access news, from the Chicago Sun-Times.

    If you could be more specific in as non-techie language as possible, I can try and help you recreate it.
  • adamsmith
    In order to not waste time I want to look at exactly the search that produces the error for you - hence the search terms.
    The database you're using is
    "ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2008)" is that correct?
  • adamsmith
    I'm also still not clear if the problem is only for search results - i.e. with the folder icon in the URL bar - or with individual articles - i.e. with the newspaper icon in the URL bar?
  • Jkindig
    Yes, that's correct. It is a problem for search results (the folder) and individual results, when I select the article I want (the sheet of paper for journal article comes up for some reason, not the rolled up newspaper icon).

    If this helps, when other proquest databases (Washington Post, Amsterdam News) were working for me yesterday, the search results (folder) was capturing just fine and the individual items were showing up as newspaper icons in my library. Which is great.
  • fgrady
    My colleague and I are also having problems with the New York Times historical newpaper through Proquest. For example, importing Gloria Steinem's Mother Wasn't All That Liberated, by Winzola McLendon, 02 May 1972, doesn't populate the publication field or author fields resulting in an incorrect citation. We had the same experience with other articles as well.
  • fgrady
    As indicated above, the article has an item type of journal article rather newspaper article.
  • adamsmith
    I can have a look - unfortunately, the proquest translator isn't as stable as we'd like to - and they seem to have the unfortunate tendency to change the tag names in their site structure.
  • fgrady
    I suggested that my co-worker use JSTOR for his demo. ;-)
  • adamsmith
    JSTOR almost never breaks. The actual NYTs site is great, too if you have a subscription (subscription doesn't matter for translator - but you quickly run out of your quota of articles) - I actually use that when I'm doing research on old NYT articles.
  • adamsmith
    I have something of a fix up for review. Will definitely work for fgrady, I can't reproduce Jkindig's issues, but they appear at similar locations in the code, so it's possible those will be fixed as well.

    You can follow along here - https://github.com/zotero/translators/pull/211 once it's accepted/merged it will auto-update for you within 24hs or you can do so immediately from the general tab of the Zotero preferences.
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