Zotero connector port "stealing"

b0c5
Zotero listens on port 23119 for Connector requests. Sometimes after Zotero closes, I find that Evince, or other PDF readers opened from Zotero, end up listening on this port.

I realized this was happening because when I restart Zotero, the Connector does not work because the port is taken by Evince.

Is it possible that Zotero is not releasing the port when it exits, and this results in the system giving the port to one of the children processes (Evince in this case)?
  • adomasven
    We release the port, but if that doesn't work on your system for some reason, what you are describing is conceivable. I have tested on Ubuntu 16.04 and could not reproduce this.

    Have you tested this thoroughly? I.e. if you restart Zotero with Evince launched by a previous Zotero session, saving from connector fails, but if you restart Zotero after closing the Evince launched by previous Zotero session, then connector saves well? What distribution are you running? Could you submit a Report ID after restarting Zotero where the connector server on port 23119 has failed to initialize?
  • dstillman
    On Ubtuntu 17.10 I'm not seeing Evince inherit the port binding at all, before or after Zotero is closed. Does sudo netstat -pln | grep 23119 show it as bound to the port while Zotero is open?
  • b0c5
    I just submitted Error ID 438901256.

    First, I had Zotero opened with the Connector working fine and Zotero listening on port 23119. Then I opened a PDF (Evince) from Zotero, and exited Zotero (with Evince left open). AT this point when I do `netstat -pln | grep 23119` I find Evince listening on port 23119. I opened Zotero again and Connector was no longer working. Then I submitted the error report.

    I am on Linux Mint 18.3.
  • dstillman
    I can't explain the different behavior, but I think you'll need to see if there's something you can adjust on your end to change this, since we're not seeing it. (We can't control the process-opening code anyway, which is buried in the Firefox framework we use.)
Sign In or Register to comment.