Zotero permanently crashes

Zotero 4.0.3 permanently crashes Firefox 20.0 when I want to search for references in my library or sometimes when I just open Zotero.

Report ID 1492341031

It is not possible to work properly with it at the moment.
What can I do?
  • Have you tried disabling other Firefox extensions?
  • What does "permanently crashes" mean?
  • @ Gracile: no I have not. Which one should I disable:
    Quick Locale Switcher 1.7.8.5
    SQLite Manager 0.7.7
    Zotero 4.0.4
    Zotero Word for Windows Integration 3.1.12
    Print pages to PDF 0.1.9.0

    @ Dan: last week Mozilla crashed either a few seconds after I opened Zotero or if I wanted to search in my library. It crashed as soon as I typed a letter into the search window of our library, then I had to wait for some minutes until I could type in the next letter, had to wait again...
    Is our library to large? Where is the limit?
  • edited April 8, 2013
    Which quick search mode are you using?
    How many items in your library? With child items? How big is your full-text index, in the Search pane of the Zotero preferences?
  • I am using "All fiels & tags".
    Our library has 27912 items and
    50903 total items.
    The maximum characters to index per file is 500000.
    Index-statistics:
    Indexed: 51
    partial: 0
    not indexed: 22650
    words: 9322

    It took some time to get those informations because Mozilla crashed when I wanted to index total items with Ctrl +
  • No, I meant what do you mean by "crash"? "Crash" means that it's quitting unexpectedly, possibly with a dialog box telling you it did so. I think what you're saying is that it's "freezing". (It also doesn't sound like it's actually permanent.)

    There's no limit to library sizes, but with 50,000 items, things can easily be slow. Try changing the search mode to "Title, Creator, Year". With a library that size, you might need to, at least if you have a lot of tags.

    I'd be interested in seeing a Debug ID for a search in "All Fields & Tags" mode, though.
  • ah, ok. last week when I made the forum's entry Mozilla froze (no response) as soon as I opened Zotero. Sometimes it worked again after a few minutes, but froze again as soon as I typed in a letter in the search window. It was just possible to type one letter and wait for some minutes to type the next, because it froze.

    Now I opened Mozilla, then Zotero and it worked, but froze again for about two minutes when I started typing into the search window. Now it seems to work.

    However, the Debug ID is D591207516.
  • edited April 9, 2013
    Is it faster if you close the tag selector in the bottom left? You can drag the divider down to close it.
  • Unfortunately not. I usually have this window closed. When I want to tick off (or on) "display automatic tags" (Automatische Tags anzeigen) it freezes again for more than one minute.
  • this is why it takes more time to answer your questions than it would... it freezes for at least a minute.
  • Can you provide another Debug ID for a delay with the tag selector closed? I do see a 70-second delay in your previous output, but I think that one was related to the tag selector.
  • just the attempt to close it causes a freeze... will send it to you in a few minutes...
  • now I wanted to delete two letters in the search windows to make a new search and it is frozen again
  • the debug ID is D1433940030
  • What exactly are you doing while generating that? What's the action you're taking? It doesn't appear to be searching.
  • I typed in a word in the search window after I managed to delete the two letters that were already there from the previous search
  • I'm not really sure how that could be the case. There's no indication of searching here (though there is a 70-second delay):

    (4)(+0000002): Registering observer for [item-tag,setting] in notifier with hash 1q'

    (4)(+0071065): Unregistering observer in notifier with hash '9m'

    (4)(+0000002): Unregistering observer in notifier with hash '1q'

    Is it actually updating search results in the middle pane?

    Can you try this again? Start debug output logging, type into the search bar, and then submit the debug output.

    To be clear, I'm talking about the quick search bar in the Zotero toolbar, not the Advanced Search window.
  • Also, you should disable all your other Firefox extensions to make sure they're not interfering. You can reenable them after if that has no effect.
  • should I disable them before I try another search? I also mean the quick search bar
  • now I can't generate a Debug ID because the button is not active

    The search worked
  • What button isn't active?
  • Can you review the instructions again to make sure you're doing this correctly? You need to enable logging, then perform the relevant action, and then stop the logging and submit the output.

    If debug output logging is enabled while you type into the search bar, there should be a lot more output than is showing up in your Debug IDs, so I'm not quite sure what's going on.
  • the generated ID is D252738170.
  • I repeated it according to the instructions and got following ID: D1976341997

    It is updating the research results in the middle pane and displays the amount in the right pane. It takes some time, but works.

    All extensions are enabled. Should I disable them?
    I will observe the performance and let you know.
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