Word crashes with Zotero (Report #831272193)

curtisbingham
Zotero is causing Word to crash repeatedly. Word is stable before installing Zotero. Word crashes only after Zotero has modified the document such as when citations have been inserted, bibliography inserted, or document refreshed. I can consistently recreate the problem by opening a document with citations, make any zotero change (ie. refresh the document (ctrl-option-R), and then click on a minimized app from the dock and Word closes in the background with the error: "MS Word has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." If I click on the More Information button, I get an Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS.
I'll post the headers of the message below. I can provide the full trace if it is useful.

This only happens when clicking on anything minimized in the dock, including Word documents, finder windows, Outlook, Safari, Firefox, etc.
This only happens after Zotero has had an interaction with the Word document.

I have removed and reinstalled both Zotero and the Word integration. I've moved Zotero.dot out of the Word startup and reinstalled Word integration and restarted Word.

I'm using the following:
Mac OSX v. 10.9.5
Word for Mac 2011, v14.4.3 (140616)
Zotero 4.0.24.1
Zotero Word for Mac Integration 3.5.7
Error report #831272193 and 860206356

Word Error Reporting:
Error Signature:
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS
Date/Time: 2014-12-10 20:21:33 +0000
Application Name: Microsoft Word
Application Bundle ID: com.microsoft.Word
Application Signature: MSWD
Application Version: 14.4.3.140616
Crashed Module Name: Microsoft Word
Crashed Module Version: 14.4.3.140616
Crashed Module Offset: 0x001ede26
Blame Module Name: Microsoft Word
Blame Module Version: 14.4.3.140616
Blame Module Offset: 0x001ede26
Application LCID: 1033
Extra app info: Reg=en Loc=0x0409
Crashed thread: 0


What say ye? Can anyone else recreate this?
  • dstillman
    Start by updating to the latest version of Word 2011.
  • curtisbingham
    Word has been upgraded, without impact.
    Anyone else have any ideas as to why this might be happening?
  • curtisbingham
    Bumping this up. Anyone have any ideas as to how to further diagnose?
  • aurimas
    Can you reproduce this in a new document (based on your steps, it seems like you would have to open a fresh document, add a citation, save/close the document, then open it again) or is this specific to particular document(s)?
  • curtisbingham
    Aurimas, you are correct, I can create this with any document, including a fresh one. Suggestions as to how to diagnose this? I imagine that this is not necessarily endemic to all.
  • aurimas
    And you can confirm that this _only_ happens if Zotero is involved. Do you have any other Word add-ons?
  • curtisbingham
    That is correct. This is a vanilla Word install. Nothing happens until Zotero is activated.
  • kyfrack
    Was there ever a resolution to this issue? I have been experiencing this with Word for months.
  • meusen
    edited December 5, 2015
    Wondering the same thing... Have been using Zotero again after a 4 months hiatus and whenever I try to change anything in Zotero citations it crashes. I'd like to change all footnotes to endnotes but no such luck. And reformatting 180 pages manually - not so much fun.
    I've updated both word and Zotero, uninstalled and re-installed the add-ons and standalone software (using mac as well), rebooted, copied parts of the document to create a new version and tinker with it... nothing. Just Zotero error messages and Word crashing time and time again.
  • adamsmith
    Is this Word 2011 or Word 2016?
  • meusen
    Word 2011
  • adamsmith
    What's the Zotero error message? Generally speaking, Word should just not crash. If it does, it's almost by definition a Word bug, but that doesn't really help you, I realize.

    Same in a fresh document, or just with that particular one?
  • meusen
    Same in any document. I try to convert footnotes to endnotes (or change the citation style from MLA to Chicago), Zotero runs through and does "something" then stops and
    - shows a bunch of gibberish instead of the previously correct in-text citations (0:00:00AM?)
    - gives an error message (of course I don't have a screenshot of it right now)
    - leads Word to freeze and shut down
  • adamsmith
    screenshot would help. Post to dropbox, imgur or something comparable. But I understand correctly this only happens with operations involving Footnotes? That narrows it down a bit.

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