Zotero standalone freezes- XULrunner not responding
I see various versions of similar problems posted on here, but nothing seems quite close enough to help me--yesterday Zotero started freezing every time I open it and try to access the libraries I'm a part of (they're large--I had some issues getting them to sync the first time, though they've worked fine for the last week I've been using them).
I haven't downloaded anything new and am not able to get as far as taking any action--it just freezes either during or after accessing the library, goes to "Not Responding," and if I try to close gives the message "XULRunner is not responding." Any help would be much appreciated.
I haven't downloaded anything new and am not able to get as far as taking any action--it just freezes either during or after accessing the library, goes to "Not Responding," and if I try to close gives the message "XULRunner is not responding." Any help would be much appreciated.
I recently reorganised/renamed a couple of folders and added a few files but nothing major...
Thanks!
If you're happy with your data as it exists online, you could just close Zotero, move your Zotero data directory out of the way, restart Zotero to create an empty database, and then sync to pull down all the server data.
Assuming you have more recent data, though, your best option is probably to export the recent data (sorting by Date Added in the middle pane, which you can add if necessary) to Zotero RDF with files. Then you can close Zotero, move your old Zotero data directory out of the way, restart Zotero with an empty database, and sync to pull down all the server data. Then you can reimport the exported data and sync that up to the server.
Note that any items you export and import will be treated as completely new items, so you export anything that does exist on the server it would be duplicated, and if you've used any of the recent items in word processor documents, the association to the items in your database might break.
Just returning to this problem now, having been scared off by the words "your database might break". This thing has years of work built up in it and I really don't want to break it or lose anything!
As far as I can tell I haven't successfully synced for over a year now, though there is some new stuff that is only showing up online and not in my desktop (and more new stuff only in my standalone). I think this all happened when I was trying to set up my workflow to include a tablet (using zotfile), which never really got off the ground.
Apparently, my files are currently in:
\Desktop\Old Firefox Data\yr9cp5et.default\zotero
No idea what they are doing there. I am now using chrome.
A few questions before I begin:
1. Where do you recommend I put my files from now on?
2. Where is a safe place to put them while I am restarting Zotero with an empty database? Moving them around makes me nervous!
3. Is there an easy way to deal with duplicates once I have followed through on the process suggested above? I fear there will be thousands.
Thanks for your support!
I use Zotero stand alone in Windows 7. I do not synch with any online libraries. I often get the "XULRunner has stopped responding" problem simply when dragging a new PDF file into Zotero. Any suggestions?
Many thanks.
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/item_count
(i.e. all items, notes, and attachments)
as well as a debug ID for any action that takes unduly long together with an exact description what you're doing during that debug:
http://www.zotero.org/support/debug_output
Item count - 5299
Total item count - 11162
PS it seems to me that very many of these kind of problems would be averted if only Zotero had some sort of status window that told the user what, if anything, is happening in the background.
1) If you're having trouble with large syncs and conflicts, you really should be using auto-sync — it avoids these problems. You'll never be more than 15 seconds out of date. Using the "choose all from this side" option every time is definitely not something you want to do.
2) The next major version of Zotero will both keep the UI responsive during large operations and handle large syncs much better.
3) If Zotero for Firefox is syncing fine, it's possible you have a different data directory set. Since Firefox is working, you should point Zotero Standalone to the data directory Zotero for Firefox is using. They should be using the same directory, such that when you open Standalone the Firefox version switches to a lightweight connector mode. (After switching the data directory to the same directory as Firefox and making sure all your data is there, you should delete the other one to avoid confusion.)