Search hangs in Zotero 5

flagman
I just upgraded to Zotero 5 (5.0.17) and search hangs every fifth or sixth time I do a search. I enter some search string in the box at the top, and the little "busy icon" circles around next to the search box forever. Sometimes I eventually get partial search results appearing in the middle window, but grayed out and non-responsive. Hitting the X in the search window clears the search window but does not stop the busy icon or wake the rest of Zotero. If I close Zotero then restart it and enter the same string in the search, it works fine until I've done a few more searches, when it hangs again. Search is set to All Fields & Tags.

I do a lot of searches and this is really a pain. Please fix.

- Flagman
  • dstillman
    We haven't been able to reproduce this. If you can do so easily, can you provide a Debug ID for it happening?
  • flagman
    Debug id D77468300. It hung on the second search with debug output on.

    Thanks.
  • dstillman
    This shows some saving/syncing activity too, though. What exactly did you do to reproduce it?
  • flagman
    Typed in Janz in the search field and hit enter, after doing a search before that. If it synced, it did it automatically.
  • flagman
    Actually, after the previous search I created a new note attached to the entry I found. Then I typed in Janz. So I suppose it was syncing to add the new note to the database.
  • dstillman
    You should start by upgrading to 5.0.18 via Help -> "Check for Updates…" (You're on 5.0.17.) You should also check your database integrity from the Advanced → Files and Folders pane of the Zotero preferences, though that probably won't find anything.

    If you're still seeing it in 5.0.18, does it happen if you haven't made any item changes in the last 15 seconds (or if you temporarily disable auto-sync in the Sync pane of the preferences)?

    If not, knowing that it's related to a combination of syncing and searching, are you able to figure out more specific steps that get it to occur and not occur?
  • deszoeke
    I have this error (forever busy wheel next to search box) on MacOS, Zotero 5.0.18. No errors found by Check Database Integrity.

    I dragged a few things from my main library into a collection. Other than that, I'm not updating my database.

    The Debug ID is D1314976694.
  • flagman
    I just installed 5.0.18 and the bug seems to have gone away, or at least become less frequent. Will let you know if it recurs. Thanks.
  • flagman
    It happened again. I did a search and created a new short note with one of the results. The third time I did this it went into its forever busy wheel during the search. So I turned on debugging and went through the same process, and it hung during the seventh search. Debug id D451341039. Zotero 5.0.18
  • adamsmith
    You should be on version 5.0.21 several potentially related bugs have been fixed since 5.0.18
  • flagman
    Okay, but upgrading is a pain because it requires admin authority so the system admins have to do it. One of the nice things about the firefox extension was that admin was not required to upgrade extensions. Maybe I'll wait a little while until the constant updates settle down.
  • adamsmith
    It's generally going to be cumbersome to have to request updates individually and no one here is going to help you troubleshoot on older versions just because we don't know if any error you experience is still around.

    You can install Zotero with a non-admin account and I think that's actually preferable.
  • Alejandro Paz
    Hi, I'm getting the spinning wheel (on quick search box by entering a name) and I'm using 5.0.21. Just submitted debug log D1830874430. Like above, it seems to happen less often than with earlier versions of 5, but it does happen. I try to click out of it by selecting a collection (deleting the quick search), but this time, that even hung. What's weird is the item list pane seems to only partially populate. Thanks.
  • Sopdet
    Me too, identical symptoms to flagman and Alejandro. Report ID 759443106 and D486898590. I have just updated to Z5 and can't do more than four searches without this happening. Here, it happens on the second search. 5.0.21, Windows 10.

    I'm also noticing another problem which happened again during this debug logging: sometimes, all my items suddenly expand when I edit something. I can't recall this ever happening with Z4 and I haven't noticed yet whether it happens consistently - but it's quite annoying too! Is there a new shortcut I'm accidentally hitting?
  • bwiernik
    For the second issue, the + key expands all the items in a view. Perhaps you are mistyping that?
  • dstillman
    edited September 28, 2017
    For the search issue, see my questions here:

    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/287216/#Comment_287216

    Note that these are for triggering it after a restart.
  • Sopdet
    + is the key I'm used to, bwiernik, but I'm nowhere near it when the expand-all behaviour happens. I'll keep an eye on it to isolate when it happens. I'm heading over to the other thread to deal with the search issue.

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