Zotero can't lookup Pubmed IDs

cartmanbeck
I've tried several different citations. Up until today I had always been able to click on the little magic wand, paste in a PMID number and it would find the reference flawlessly, but today it's saying it can't find any of them. Anyone have a suggestion for me?
  • adamsmith
    The server is temporarily unable to service your request. Please try again. If you continue to receive this error, please contact
    This has been a recurring problem with PubMed's API - i.e. the PubMed webserver Zotero (and many other apps) retrieves data from - recently. Typically goes away in somewhere between half an hour and a day. Unfortunately there's nothing at all we can do about that.
  • RintzeRintze
    Doesn't work for me either. The PubMed lookup service isn't the most reliable, though, so this probably will fix itself in a day or so.
  • RintzeRintze
    Do we have any contact information for the developers at PubMed? It would be nice if they could put up a status page of their API.
  • adamsmith
    (we also need to fix the fact that there's no error message when using the regular NCBI Pubmed site)
  • cartmanbeck
    Thanks for the quick response. I had figured that it was on PubMed's end, but since it didn't give a specific "PubMed's server isn't working for us" message I wanted to be sure. I actually worked for a summer at NCBI, and I can tell you that the PubMed databases are very complex and no one person over there knows how to fix everything, so figuring out who to contact about it will be tough.
  • DWL-SDCA
    I have daily automated interactions with both the PubMed and NLM journals database. When there are problems or when I have questions I call the help desk. The contact info is available from the link at the upper right of the main PubMed search page. The same link is available on most pages but not always in the same place.

    I have _always_ had my calls answered promptly by intelligent, competent, and helpful people who; if they cannot answer my questions, will stay with me on the line while they find someone who can help. Many times over the years I have hesitated to call about a system problem because I thought that surely someone has already reported it. But in almost every case, the problem had not come to their attention and the issue was resolved in minutes or a few hours. Once or twice it was resolved while I was on the phone with them.

    This is definitely a place where good government works as it should. I always tell folks about Zotero's excellent technical support (one of the very best). The NCBI help system is one of the few that is even better.

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