Word plugin unresponsive after update to 5.0.37 on windows

eparimbelli
Hi all,
my zotero (on windows) just updated to 5.0.37 and suddenly the word (2016) plugin has stopped working. I still see the Zotero tab but the buttons are unresponsive when Zotero is open (if it's closed the usual error "zotero not responding" is correctly shown).
I tried to update to 5.0.38 beta aftere reading of a similar problem on mac here: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/70569/zotero-plug-in-for-word-16-10-on-mac-osstatus-error-1728-is-back

It did not solve the issue for me though.
I tried: rebooting, reinstalling word plugin from zotero preferences, reinstalling Zotero entirely. Nothing helped so far.
I click on the buttons and just nothing happens

Can you have a look at the issue?
Thanks,
Enea
  • eparimbelli
    Update: also downgrading to 5.0.36 does not solve the issue. Can anything be wrong with the word plugin itself?

    Help would be much appreciated! (first time I experience such a problem... obviously with a challenging deadline for paper submission to catch in a couple days.... AAAARRRRGH)
  • eparimbelli
    After more extensive testing I am afraid the problems after the 5.0.37 update are not limited to the word plugin.
    - I can't export items in the form of a bibliography even from right-clicking in zotero standalone
    - (connected to the above one) it seems all my installed styles have gone missing, including the ones included by default!
    - zotero icon is missing after the update on another machine I have (Linux Ubuntu 16.04 and zotero standalone... updated today as well unfortunately)

    Something seems to be off here. Am I the only one experiencing this????
    Problems seem to be the same on 2 different machines with different OS (but same library).... so.... Help needed :)
  • adomasven
    Sounds like a corrupt database. Are you syncing your database using Dropbox or similar service between these two machines? Could you submit a Report ID?
  • eparimbelli
    Thanks, the corrupt DB suggestion pointed me to the right direction. I am not syncing through dropbox but simply sharing it using a network-attached shared folder.
    I ran the database check and repair tools from Zotero and was able to fix the issue. Weirdly enough the styles were still missing but popped back up when I tried to manually browse for one .csl file on my hard drive.

    Problem fixed and life is good again. back to loving Zotero (even 5.0.37 now)
  • adamsmith
    sharing Zotero on any network or syncing folder is likely to cause problems of this sort (completely unrelated to 5.0.37), so you should look for a different solution.
  • eparimbelli
    I know sharing via dropbox and similar services was not suggested and likely to cause problems. However I thought that a simple network-accessible folder (with no complicated syncing method whatsoever, It's just a bunch of files in the end) would cause no harm.

    Setup is the following:
    - Machine 1 - ubuntu linux, zotero standalone, syncing libraries with zotero server
    - machine 2 - windows, zotero standalone, data folder pointing to the same folder used by machine 1 (network-mounted folder), no syncing with server (to avoid conflicts I preferred only having one machine to sync)

    Is this not recommended as well? Don't really want to depend on syncing with the server (even if I do have a paid account for library storage) when I can have direct easy access to the zotero data folder
  • dstillman
    Any network-attached storage accessed from multiple computers is likely to corrupt your database. All it takes is having Zotero open on both computers at the same time, or the latest file updates coming down from the network after you've opened Zotero.
  • eparimbelli
    got it, I (wrongly) thought that a read-only access from both computers would not be causing problems. I suspected adding refs with both the Zotero instances running would cause problems, and I always avoided that.

    thanks for your clarification, I'll try to work out a different solution that works for my case

    Just to make it clear to other readers that may end up here after the update:
    5.0.37 works just fine, it was my mistake
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