I can get this to work on 2 Macs but not the 3rd. The one I'm on now works AFAICT. It is running LO 5.1.2 and Java 1.8_91 rather than 101 or 102. I will try this combination on the other Mac and report back. But it may be a week or so because of an upcoming trip.

It's Java JDK (Java Development Kit)

I just reinstalled 1.8_91 on the computer where the Zotero plugin did not work with LO. First I tried an older version of LO 5.1.2. Before I downgraded JDK, it did not work with the plugin. After installing 1.8_91, AND SELECTING it under Preferences/LibreOffice/advanced, it worked fine.

Then I did the same thing with the newest LO 5.1.4.2 (i.e., selected the older JDK) and it also works fine with the Zotero plugin. Perhaps 1.8_92 works too, but I don't have it.

IMPORTANT, this is not JRE (Java Runtime Environment). I was unable to downgrade that to 1.8_91, but it didn't matter. It is JDK that is the problem. Fortunately, you CAN have more than one version of JDK.

So just install JDK 1.8_91 (or maybe 92), and select it in LO, and the plugin seems to work fine.

Michael

Did you install the specific version of JDK that I mentioned? It looks like later versions are the cause of the problem, at least for a couple of us.

All programs depend on other programs to run correctly. Every time there is a major upgrade to any OS, there is the possibility of some (sometimes many) programs that do not function correctly because some functionality they depended on is no longer available in the way it was before. Robust program design attempts to anticipate such problems and avoid them as much as possible. But as someone who has designed and written software, I know that it is impossible to predict how every change to a 3rd party dependency can affect a program. That is, there is no way for the Zotero team to know in advance what Oracle might do with its Java JDK, how that might affect LibreOffice, and how that might affect the functionality of a plugin that is an addition to the main Zotero software.

That said, the first thing that is needed to solve a problem like this is to find out what is causing the problem. In this case, it is looking likely that a change in JDK, which does not have any obvious effect on LibreOffice, but which seems to interact with LO in such a way as to prevent the Zotero LO plugin from working correctly. If this can be verified by others testing it out, then the dev team will have something to work with for isolating and fixing the problem. It also seems to provide a potential workaround that will let people keep using Zotero and LibreOffice together until this issue is resolved. To make this easier, here is a link to the older version of JDK for the Mac on my DropBox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0nsj7f8k9yvjgfx/jdk-8u91-macosx-x64.dmg?dl=0

I cannot guarantee how long this link will remain stable, but I don't plan to change it in the near future.

FWIW, the reason I switched to Zotero some years back was because of all the bugs and periodic non-functionality of EndNote. Commercial software is not inherently more stable and bug free than open source software. In fact, this comparative (not absolute) reliability of LibreOffice over alternatives is what pushed me to use it more and more.

I'm not feeling grouchy about this at all. In fact, this was a potential disaster for me too, since I depend on Zotero so much for writing paper, writing grants, doing research. So I fully understand your concern as well. For the record, I am not a Zotero developer (I've developed on GRASS GIS) but a dedicated Zotero user.

My only point is that a problem like this is really impossible for any dev team to anticipate. This seems (from the numbers) like this is a minor change in JDK. But as is the case in general for complex systems like this, tiny changes can sometimes have big effects (and big changes can also have no effects). Now that the source of the problem has been identified, it will be possible to try and track down exactly what it was that cause it. Hopefully, the plugin can be made robust against the same kind of change in the future. But there will always be another, unexpected gotcha. It is a constant arms race.

The big thing that OS software has to help it is its ability to use potentially apply large-scale crowd sourcing to this evolutionary scenario. That is, the availability of a large and active user base can rapidly help ID and fix problems. By getting to step one here, it will enable the dev team to more effectively do its part.

FWIW, I just now talked with a colleague who uses Linux and warned him about this issue. He said he already knew about it. The JDK upgrade messed up a number of other programs on his system and he had to roll back to 1.8_92.

Thanks cmbarton for the Dropbox link.

When I updated LO for Mac to 5.1.4.2, it no longer recognized my JRE (which seemed sufficient in previous versions) so after a bit of digging I installed the latest JDK (102). The Zotero extension was suddenly disabled and LO hung whenever I tried to reinstall it. The rollback works fine.

I just wish there were a more efficient way to get that information out there, because probably every single person using Zotero and LO for Mac now is digging around trying to solve the same problem.

Joe

Same problem with LO on Mac (actually, I've had similar problems in the past months with different versions of LO and Java...). I solved it by installing Java _91 with brew cask following this guide:

http://kevinallenrodriguez.com/blog/properly-installing-managing-multiple-java-versions-on-os-x/

But I installed the _91 version directly with this command on the terminal (it installs the _91 version, not the most updated):

brew cask install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/caskroom/homebrew-cask/0e78df41e8a27672e313fd7b0d1d7041573a12b3/Casks/java.rb

The JRE could not find later, this was solved with this command:

jenv enable-plugin export

I also had to downgrade LO to 5.0.6, with 5.2 It freezes in the installation of enabling of extensions (in El Capitan):

http://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/?type=mac-x86_64&version=5.0.6&lang=en-US

@alexandrearley: Have updated the documentation with information about the newest version of JDK that still works. (See here)
@ cmbarton: thanks for the link to jdk 1.8_91 in your dropbox. Since the JDK sites only offers newer downloads, I've linked from the documentation to the file in your dropbox – if you could kindly leave the .dmg there until this issue is hopefully resolved. Should this be no longer possible, please give Zotero's LO/Mac user's a heads up in this thread here and I'll remove the link from the documentation.

(thanks kithairon, both for updating docs and for finding the JDK archive.)

I can confirm joehill's solution. Updating LO to the 5.1.5 branch resolves the problem presented by the upgrade to Java 1.8_102.

I think most of us are aware that LO on the Mac has had a bit of a bumpy ride because of java friction. And searching for threads on this forum can be a bit easier if the subject is comprehensively stated (I believe the search function in this forum only does searches of subject lines -- @adamsmith?). I am required to pay nothing to use any of these components, but, as was pointed out, if one wants students to use these products they need to aggressively avoid such issues (though I actually had an LO peep advise that since LO was not used by students, they had no concern for student experience, lol).

So while we need to keep inter-product QA in mind now, we also need to recognize that Java 9 is some six months away, and will undoubtedly break everything ;-)

Thanks all for working the problem. Three days to confirm a work-around, and 6 weeks to confirm that upgrading resolved the problem is not the worst experience one could have.

@joehill and @netbuoy , this issue is still present with LO 5.2.0.4 so I'm not sure it's completely fixed.

Would you be "brave" enough to try to upgrade to 5.2.0.4 and see if the issue comes back? You could always roll back to 5.1.5 branch afterwards if you want it to work again.

There IS a LO Fresh version at 5.2.1 (http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/mac-x86_64/5.2.1/en-US/LibreOffice_5.2.1_MacOS_x86-64.dmg) which is not a dev version. Perhaps you should upgrade to that @cmbarton

Everyone needs to remember to indicate the versioning of all the components when indicating something blew up as it gets very confusing when you are talking about the versions of an OS, two applications, and two plugins.

@alexanderfarley writes that things went sideways with LO 5.2.0.4, but did not indicate what was set for Java, nor whether with JDK or JRE. There are I think a number of possible glitches at work. @cmbarton downloaded 5.2.0.4 and says it works, and I am assuming that he means it works with Java 1.8_102, yes? As mentioned above, perhaps test with LO Fresh 5.2.1?

Here's another working setup - I’m using a Macbook Pro running Mac OS X version 10.9.5 (two versions back because I didn't want to have to recompile a large amount of custom scientific software I use). Just after I very recently updated LibreOffice from 5.0.6.3 to 5.1.4.2, the Zotero bibliographic plugin stopped working. Following is my current workaround that requires only downloading and installation of an archival (outdated) version of Oracle’s Java Developer Kit (JDK) and an archival version of LibreOffice - all other software can be left as it currently is including up-to-date versions of LibreOffice (now you’ll have two versions), Firefox, and you don’t have to reinstall either of the Zotero plugins (for Firefox and for LibreOffice) if these were previously installed.

Firefox 48.0.1 (current version as of 15.09.2016; available at: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#en-US )

Installed plugin: Zotero for Firefox version 4.0.29.11 (available at: https://www.zotero.org/download/ )

LibreOffice 5.0.6.3 (available at: https://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/ )

Zotero LibreOffice Plugin 3.5.12 (The latest version of the LibreOffice plugin for Zotero 3.0+ is 3.5.12 (compatible with all versions of LibreOffice, all versions of Apache OpenOffice, and OpenOffice.org 3.0-3.3.x; available at: https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_installation ).

Java SE Development Kit 8u91 (available from Oracle at: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/java-archive-javase8-2177648.html#jdk-8u91-oth-JPR ) You must click on the radio button “Accept License Agreement” (I downloaded: Mac OS X 227.29 MB jdk-8u91-macosx-x64.dmg); you will be redirected to an Oracle login window and you have to create an oracle.com account to be able to download archived versions (this is a safety feature intended for allowing software developers access to old versions that do not possess up-to-date safety features!) After you open the .dmg image, direct the installer to install the JDK software at: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines . This will create a new directory “jdk1.8.0_91.jdk” filled with the working files that include the Java Runtime Environment (jre).

Now open LibreOffice 5.0.6.3 and in the Mac menu bar go to LibreOffice>Preferences…>LibreOffice>Advanced . Under Java Options be sure to check the box for “Usse a Java runtime environment”. You will likely see at least two entries for runtime environments in the menu - click the radio button in front of the entry “Oracle Corporation 1.8.0_91” and finally click the blue “OK” button to save the settings. (The newer/updated version of JDK on my Mac is “Oracle Corporation 1.8.0_102” and this does not work with the LibreOffice/Firefox/Zotero constellation.) Please not that the Mac OS operating system is still going to use the latest version of Java JDK (and its associated Java runtime environment) - you can verify the current version used by Mac OS X by opening a terminal and typing: java -version . Also, for general security, you should be sure that under the Update tab of the Java Control Panel( that appears when you open the SystemPreferences window for Mac OS X) has the box checked for “Check for Updates Automatically”.

You should be good to go now for using Zotero with Firefox and LIbreOffice for inserting literature citations and formatting bibliographic citations for your manuscripts.

- - - - -

I'll try the solution that netbuoy came up with yesterday and see if this works for me too (will repost to confirm....)

Hi all,

I think other people have posted this, but here is the set up I got to work:

Mac: 10.11.5
LibreOffice: 5.2.1.2
Zotero Standalone: 4.0.29.11
Java JDK: 1.8.0_77 (91, 101, and 102 did not work)

It runs a little bit slowly, but it works. Hope this helps other people.