Standalone is constantly crashing - Mac Yosemite

shazj
Hello there friendly Zotero community,

For some reason, my Zotero is continuously crashing.

I have a Mac, Yosemite, recently formatted, and just downloaded Zotero from the website + Safari connector. It should be brand new.

However, I haven't even been able to log-in to Zotero from the Standalone Preferences because it continues to crash before I get there.

I'm not sure how to diagnose the issue and am completely at a loss. Any suggestions appreciated!

Thanks you,
Shaz
  • adamsmith
    can you describe such a crash in a bit more detail? Are you doing something (what? always the same thing?) and Zotero suddenly shuts down? Or does it freeze with a beachball or so? Anything else noticeable?
  • shazj
    Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

    The first thing that happens is that when I try to open Zotero, it opens my browser and goes to the 'Success! You Installed Zotero! Now install the Safari plug-in" page.
    Then, there's a beach ball for about 20 seconds.
    Then I get a Mac error message saying 'Zotero quit unexpectedly'. Do you want to send a detailed report to Apple?
    I then try opening the program again, and the same thing happens.

    So, I'm not even 'doing anyting', I've just opened the program. I haven't even managed to log-in yet so there's no references saved or anything like that.
  • adamsmith
    See here: https://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_problems#reporting_startup_errors
    for getting us some error output we can use (scroll down to the Standalone --> Mac OSX section)
  • shazj
    This is what I got, and then it crashed again:

    ======
    resource://gre/modules/Preferences.jsm
    Could not read chrome manifest 'file:///Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/chrome.manifest'.

    Warning: mutating the [[Prototype]] of an object will cause you code to run very slowly; instead create the object with the correct initial [[Prototype]] value using Object.create 12/05/2015
    source file: resource://gre/modules/Preferences.jsm Line: 381

    While creating services from category 'profile-after-change', could not create service for entry 'MobileConnection Service', contract ID '@mozilla.org/mobileconnection/mobileconnectionservie;1'

    OpenGL compositor Initialised Zuccsfuly.
    Version: 2.1 NVIDIA-10.0.31 310.90.10.05b12
    Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
    Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M OpenGL Engine
    FBO Texture Target: TEXTURE_2D


    ====

    Does that help at all?
  • shazj
    Hi there, I was wondering if anybody would be able to help me? I keep getting the same problem, and it's getting to the point where I can't avoid it anymore.

    Thank you,
    Shaz
  • dstillman
    Have you entered your username and password in the sync pane of the Zotero preferences? If so, it's possible it's trying to auto-sync and running out of memory — you'd probably see the sync icon start to spin before it froze if that were the case. If so, you can open the Zotero profile directory, delete the prefs.js file, and restart Zotero to clear the settings, and we can take it from there.

    If you don't think that's the issue, generate real-time debug output for the startup through the crash, save it to a text file, zip it, and email it to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread.
  • shazj
    Hi Dan,

    Thank you very much for your help.

    I delete the prefs.js file, but Zotero still continued to crash.

    I tried generating a real-time debug output, but that didn't work either - I'm on Yosemite so there's no 'scroll back' option in the Terminal --> Settings, and as I pasted in the debug command, it gives me this string:

    "omhp-staff-145-18-29-255:~ Shaz$ "

    OMHP is the acronym of one of the buildings at work (I'm at the office). Does that mean there's an issue with the network or something?

    Thank you for your help.
  • dstillman
    edited June 3, 2015
    On Yosemite the preferences tab is named "Profiles" instead of "Settings".
    omhp-staff-145-18-29-255:~ Shaz$
    That's just the command prompt that you get before you enter anything in. You need to paste the command from the instructions and press Return.
  • dstillman
    Also, just to clarify, you don't see any data in your library before it crashes? What do you see, exactly?

    If you go to your Zotero data directory (based on the default location), what's the size of the zotero.sqlite file?
  • shazj
    Thank you! Thank you for your patience with a complete noob

    Before it crashes, I don't see any data or references. I only see the first 'welcome to zotero here is a reference' reference.

    zotero.sqlite is 1 MB.
    zotero.sqlite-journal is 91 KB.

    I ran the debugging through Terminal. Zotero started to open (popped up in the dock), and then nothing opened, it disappeared from the dock, and acted like nothing happened.

    This appeared in the Terminal:

    1433326981881 addons.xpi WARN Unable to activate the default theme
  • dstillman
    Sorry, those instructions were out of date. Try this:
    /Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/zotero-bin -app /Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/Resources/application.ini -zoterodebug
    (No quotes.)

    Also, I assume you've tried simply deleting Zotero from /Applications and reinstalling? We rarely recommend that, but it's exceptionally odd for it to crash on startup with an empty database.
  • shazj
    The new code works in Terminal, so I saved it as a text file, zipped and sent to support.

    I have tried deleting and re-installing Zotero from /Applications several times and to no avail. In fact, whenever I try to open Zotero, it automatically opens Firefox and brings me to the 'welcome to installing zotero!' page. Firefox also crashes, so in all likelihood there is something structurally wrong with my computer...

    Thank you for your help!
  • dstillman
    edited June 4, 2015
    We didn't receive your debug output. Can you try sending again to support@zotero.org?
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