Imported citation not appearing in selected folder

lerickson
At one point when I had selected a folder in Zotero (not the My Libraries folder), and I imported a citation using the yellow folder icon in Firefox, the imported reference when directly into the selected folder. Now it only appears in the My Libraries folder and I have to manually select it and drag it to the folder I want. Only difference between when it worked and when it didn't was that I installed the latest version of Zotero.

Can't find a preference for this so not sure what's going on.
  • adamsmith
    which site is that (one example is enough)?
    Shouldn't be the case - Zotero always saves into the selected collection, there is no preference for that.
    Are you trying to save into a collection that's part of a group or is the collection in "My Library"?
  • lerickson
    Thanks for the quick response.

    Happened on Business Source Premier and INFORMS PubOnLine (http://isr.journal.informs.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/)- both were accessed through my university's library site (http://web.ebscohost.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/ehost/detail?sid=0a75fdbe-7616-4e33-8dab-63a42561c969%40sessionmgr11&vid=1&hid=9&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=buh&jid=1LD)

    But it worked before on these sites do don't think the library pass thru is the issue.
  • adamsmith
    "Are you trying to save into a collection that's part of a group or is the collection in "My Library"? "
  • lerickson
    Sorry didn't see last question - I'm trying to save in sub-folder in a folder nested under the My Libraries folder.
    MyLibraries
    - Subfolder
    - subfolder (this one)
  • lerickson
    edited November 30, 2011
    Adam clarification on that last comment - the spaces were removed

    ..MyLibraries
    .... subfolder
    ........ subfolder
  • adamsmith
    OK, so the problem is not a group. Doesn't appear to be the site translator either. If you take a regular article - like an Amazon Book or a NYTs article - same problem? In that case, create Debug Output for one such attempt and post the ID here.
    http://www.zotero.org/support/debug_output
  • lerickson
    Yep same problem. Also the small "window" that used to appear telling me the item was being saved to Zotero no longer appears. And yes, I have restarted :)

    Not familiar with how to create "Debut Output". Can you point me in the right direction?
  • adamsmith
    I didn't expect you to - there's a link to instructions in my post.
  • lerickson
    Thanks. You've been very helpful.
  • lerickson
    D145184782

    FYI, while I did capture an occurrence that didn't work, it on another site just before I captured the output. Wondering now if it's a function of the site. Hopefully you can tell from the output.
  • dstillman
    edited November 30, 2011
    Did you actually try this on Amazon and NYT pages?

    If I recall, this has been a problem before with translators that delegate to RIS.
  • lerickson
    Yes. Throughout the day it has been off and on. It didn't work for amazon or NYT - it just put the citation in the Library and not the folder I had selected. On other sites it worked fine.
  • dstillman
    Did you try switching away from the collection and back? From that debug output, it looks like Zotero did in fact save to the collection.
  • adamsmith
    Also, try this:
    http://www.zotero.org/support/collections?&#identifying_the_collections_an_item_is_in
    to see if the item got placed into any collection.
  • lerickson
    Ok, I think I see what the problem is. It appears that the problems occurs when you lanuch Zotero in a separate window. I was working with one window having the citations and a second window with Zotero.

    Evidently, if you open a separate window it doesn't always copy the items to the selected folder. Plus when I had it in a separate window holding down the Option key with an item selected didn't do anything. Both of these things worked once I made Zotero a pane at the bottom of the same window that had the items I wanted to import.

    I prefer to work with 2 full windows as it's much more productive when I can have both Zotero in a full window and the citation site I'm working with in a full window. Otherwise I have to constantly resize the Zotero pane or constantly scroll. The weird thing is that even when in 2 windows sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I retested with 2 windows and sometimes it work, sometimes not.

    Any ideas on how I can use 2 separate windows and get the citations to always import?
  • ajlyon
    Zotero allows distinct windows to have their own selected collection. This is useful for many reasons (dragging between windows, using windows for wholly separate projects), but it leads to the situation you describe. I don't know what can be done about it without compromising the current approach's strengths.
  • ski86
    I am having the same issue described above, except I am not using multiple windows. I am running Zotero in Firefox with multiple tabs and within the past couple of weeks, my imported citations are no longer being put into the folder selected. I also no longer see the import box that tells me Zotero is importing the citation. This happens with every citation regardless of source.

    How can I resolve this issue?
  • adamsmith
    Since that's not a general issue, your best bet is to start looking for something that's peculiar about your set-up:
    Make sure Zotero and Firefox are updated. Try disabling all other add-ons and personas/themes etc.

    If none of that helps, provide a debug ID as discussed above - and do this for a well established translator like amazon.com so we can exclude the translator as a relevant factor.
  • olalar
    I experience the exact same problem. The citation is not saved into the active subdirectory. It seems to happen when there are multiple tabs open in Firefox as it works once or twice after the browser is "freshly" opened. Here is a debug ID: D562652611.
    Any suggestion would be much appreciated.
  • quazgar
    I just had the same problem today. It might have been triggered by a popup window with just Zotero in an app tab, which I then closed. Restarting Firefox resolved the problem for me.
  • fepu
    Had same problem, make sure the data directory location (prefs, advanced, files and folders) is the same between firefox add-on and standalone zotero.
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