Could not find a running Word instance

SoolMed
After installing WINDOWS 2010, when I try to add a citation in Word, I get the error: "Could not find a running Word instance". I have seen the documentation that refers to this error after a new install of WORD 2010, but this is not my issue. I've been running the same MSWord for years and this only happened since the upgrade to WINDOWS 2010. Any help for this error?
  • SoolMed
    I am still unable to run zotero on this computer. I have tried uninstalling the Office suite and re-installing. I have re-downloaded the plugin over and over again. Does anyone know a solution? I'd really like to be able to keep using zotero on my computer!
  • SoolMed
    OH, and this is the message I am currently getting:

    Zotero experienced an error updating your document.

    An unhandled exception occured. [getDocument:document.cpp]'An unhandled exception occured. [getDocument:document.cpp]' when calling method: [zoteroIntegrationApplication::getDocument]
  • adamsmith
    Are those documents in OneCloud? We've seens some weird errors with that.
  • SoolMed
    Hi, no, not anything cloud-based.

    I solved this. I decided to do the opposite of what the troubleshooting suggests: I ran Firefox as administrator - and it works now. Go figure.
  • adamsmith
    You should really not do this in general, though -- it's quite unsafe. Or are you saying after doing it once it works? Otherwise, I'd check if you may be running Word as a different user.
  • SoolMed
    Weird thing - it worked once and never again. I tried what you mentioned, Adam, moving my document off the server, saving to local, reopening everything to ensure same user, but no luck.
  • SoolMed
    I am still trying to solve this. My two computers are networked together. Everything works as it should when I work from my Windows 8 computer. When I work from the windows 10 computer, that's where the problems occur. My Word docs are all stored locally on the Windows 8 computer. So, I thought maybe by saving the Word doc locally to the W10 computer, that might fix it. It didn't.
    I also have figured out that it makes no difference if I run Word as administrator or not -- it doesn't work either way.
    The only thing working right now on the W10 computer is running firefox as administrator. For some reason that works right now. I'm worried about doing that though, since you noted it is unsafe.
  • stroom
    Same here: "Could not find a running Word instance", Word2016 x64 on Win10 Home. Funny though that last week or so I had no problems, today I do. As far as I know I changed nothing on this computer. Running firefox as admin is indeed a workaround option.
  • aarwdc
    I have just started having problem as well.

    (Could not find a running Word instance. [getDocument:document.cpp:135]' when calling method: [zoteroIntegrationApplication::getDocument])

    I am running Word 2007 on Win10, with Zotero Standalone. Happened about a week ago, rebooted, and it worked fine. Happened again today, rebooted, no fix.
    Been using this setup for over a year with no problem at all.


  • aarwdc
    Report ID 701658183

    Steps to reproduce:
    1: Word and Zotero standalone, latest version, loaded.
    2: Click on Add/Edit Citation, Refresh, Document Prefs.
    3: Error message: Could not find a running Word instance. [getDocument:document.cpp:135]'Could not find a running Word instance. [getDocument:document.cpp:135]' when calling method: [zoteroIntegrationApplication::getDocument]

    Steps tried to Fix
    - Reboot
    - Change order of opening Word and Zotero
    - Occurs with new document as well as old document.

    Began a week ago, rebooted and it worked fine for a week. Then began as above.

    I am running Word 2007 on Win10, with Zotero Standalone.
    Been using this setup for over a year with no problem.
  • adomasven
    @aarwdc There's nothing we can give you, until someone who's getting this problem manages to figure out what change on their computer lead to this problem. Try running Zotero Standalone as administrator and seeing if that helps.
  • aarwdc
    Thank you. Running Zotero as admin fixed it.

    It is interesting that this works. I had a problem about a year ago and at the time, if I remember right, I needed to have both Word AND Zotero running as admin, or I would have some other problem.

    Running them both as non-admin would not work either. So I set them up to always run as admin.

    After I got a new drive in Feb, and reloaded all my programs, I found that I did not need to run as admin any longer, until now, I guess, but Word is still running non-admin.

    Come to think of it, this may have began after I let windows install its "Creators" update, which I was skeptical of to begin with and blocked most of its features.

    In any case it now works and so hopefully this will be helpful for other users.
  • Memune
    I have just tried running Zotero as Admin while running word normally, it worked. Thanks aarwdc!
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