Zotero crashing Firefox when downloading references

matthew
Error Report: 1313003837
Zotero 1.5b2

initially opening the pane is very slow - results in several "gray-outs" of firefox over approx 2-3 minutes

Once I have the zotero pane up, when I attempt to add a reference, firefox grays out for as long as I have patience for (typically 10-15 minutes). intermittantly sends out an error from firefox that the script is running, and gives a choice of quitting the script.

the end result is the same - I have to close out firefox, restart (again slow to reopen zotero), then the references I was downloading are present in the correct place.

thanks for any advice
  • dstillman
    Have you enabled syncing? If so, first disable that and see if that fixes the problem.

    What's the .js file and line referenced in the unresponsive script message?
  • matthew
    disabled syncing - no change in behavior

    file and line reference below

    chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/data/tag.js:49

    what I really can't understand is that this did it thursday, worked beautifully on friday, worked sunday, and now is doing this again today.
  • matthew
    Still getting the same error -
    and exit script


    chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/data/tag.js:49

    wondering if there is something I can do to avoid the firefox shutdowns.

    thanks
    matthew
  • dstillman
    Run Zotero with debug output—and also the extensions.zotero.debug.time pref—enabled and send the debug output for opening the pane and for adding an item to support@zot....org, referencing this thread.
  • dstillman
    zotero(5)(+0000004): SELECT tagID, name FROM tags WHERE type IN (0,1)

    zotero(4)(+0038187): Calling notify() on observer with hash 'IR'
    The SELECT on the tags table is taking 38 seconds, which it obviously shouldn't.

    I'd guess that either you have many, many tags or you somehow ended up with some very long tags (i.e., data saved to the wrong place). You may be able to see which is the case in the tag selector in the bottom left of the Zotero window, but you can also open zotero.sqlite in the SQLite command-line client and run a few commands:

    cd <Zotero data directory>
    sqlite3 zotero.sqlite

    SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tags;
    SELECT name, LENGTH(name) AS length FROM tags ORDER BY length DESC;
  • matthew
    The tags are what automatically upload from PubMed (this is where I do 99% of my searching)

    the output for the queries are as follows

    SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tags;
    6579
    SELECT name, LENGTH(name) AS length FROM tags ORDER BY length DESC;

    I don't know how to scroll up, so this output I cannot tell you, but some of the initial tags as they flash by have lengths from 80-90+

    Should I, and is there a way, to turn off the tags (at this time I don't use them).

    Thanks
    matthew
  • dstillman
    SELECT name, LENGTH(name) AS length FROM tags ORDER BY length DESC LIMIT 5;
  • matthew
    Thanks
    output below

    matthew



    sqlite> SELECT COUNT(*) FROM tags;
    6579
    sqlite>
    sqlite> SELECT name, LENGTH(name) AS length FROM tags ORDER BY length DESC LIMIT 5;
    Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma/drug therapy/ genetics/ metabolism|81
    Antibiotics, Antineoplastic/ administration & dosage/adverse effects/ therapeutic|81
    Antibiotics, Antineoplastic/ administration & dosage/pharmacokinetics/therapeutic|81
    Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic/pharmacokinetics/ pharmacology/ therapeutic use|81
    Antibiotics, Antineoplastic/ administration & dosage/immunology/ pharmacokinetics|81
    sqlite>
  • dstillman
    OK, those aren't very long. I'm not sure it'll help, but—short of deleting the tags—you might try just closing the tag selector by clicking the button to the left of the gear icon.
  • matthew
    closing the tag selector markedly improves the speed of opening zotero in the first place, and switching between libraries (that would grey out the screen for ~5 minutes with eithe action - and must be using a good chunk of my 4 GB of RAM - because all the other applications run very slowly with this going on in firefox).

    but did nothing insofar as the download.

    how does one delete and/or disable tags - I think that is what is slowing this down in general. at present it is a function I don't use.

    matthew
  • dstillman
    You can turn off auto-saving of tags in the Zotero preferences.

    To delete all existing tags, close Zotero and run this:

    DELETE FROM itemTags;
    DELETE FROM tags;
  • matthew
    that appears to have fixed the issue.

    tried intially with prefs turned off - no difference

    with the prefs off and deleted the tags - now as fast as it was intially

    thanks
    matthew
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