Zotero does not activate when used through EZProxy

I'm a student at the University of Massachusetts. When doing research from home, I access sites like JSTOR, etc., using the school's EZProxy server. This changes my URLs, making them look something like this:

http://www.jstor.org.eresources.lib.umb.edu/view/0066622x/ap050006/05a00030/

instead of

http://www.jstor.org/view/0066622x/ap050006/05a00030/

When on-campus, and lucky enough to be using a machine with Firefox 2.0 and Zotero, the latter URL works perfectly. When working from home, via proxy, Zotero is unable to recognize JSTOR or EBSCOhost, etc. and the icon does not appear.

Is there a solution, workaround, or fix for this? Is one in the works?

How does Zotero recognize sites, anyway? From this problem, I assume it is by URL and not by metadata within the pages.
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  • I've had the same problem, through the University of Wisconsin's ezproxy server. Zotero recognizes sites only when I'm not using the proxy, but I can only actually read the articles when I am using the proxy. Quite the catch-22.
  • The Google Scholar translator isn't working through Harvard's EZProxy, which adds .ezp1.harvard.edu to the domain name.
  • Likewise via Columbia and Rutgers resources. This is obviously very important to many users.
  • i'm having the same problem via drexel med's ezproxy.
  • Zotero does have some EZProxy support. While I have access to only two EZProxy-based systems, it works fine with both. It is quite possible that it doesn't work with others, but unfortunately, my ability to test your specific sites is limited.
  • I just tried this again. Zotero worked fine through EZProxy on ABC-CLIO, but wouldn't work with either jstor or my university's library catalog (UW Madison).
  • *Still* failing for Google Scholar through Harvard's EZProxy. For example, on this search:

    http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=Mozilla-search&q=%22Dispositional+theories+of+value%22

    the references save fine when outside of EZProxy. But through Harvard's portal:

    http://scholar.google.com.ezp1.harvard.edu/scholar?q=%22Dispositional+theories+of+value%22&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search

    I can see the address bar folder icon and select items to save, but nothing will save. Instead, on selecting items to save, Zotero gives me an empty rectangular frame ("Saving item..." style, but without any text or other interior) and fails silently.

    Simon, Zotero is great but it *must* work with the institutional access portals for sites like this. How can we help you make it happen?
  • cartesian: Could you please follow the error reporting instructions posted here? Since we don't have access to your particular EZProxy configuration, we're going to need you to collect some more information for us. Thanks.
  • I followed the instructions, Sean, but no errors were reported in the console (information and warning messages were reported, but none from Zotero). Maybe I should clarify that Zotero isn't crashing, it's just failing to do anything to save the item... it doesn't even freeze up and the empty frame goes away if I click on it.

    ... I did manage to stumble upon an unrelated bug. This error pops up every time I open a New Tab, either blank or by right clicking on a link. I'm on XP and I use TabMixPlus. It doesn't occur when I open a New Window.

    Error: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIURI.hostPort]" nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/ingester.js :: proxyToProper :: line 147" data: no]
    Source File: chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/ingester.js
    Line: 147

    Is there anything else we can do? I might be able to work through my library contacts to get you a Harvard login for testing of the EZProxy sites.
  • cartesian: Could you please replicate the problem while running Firefox from the console?

    1. Go to about:config in the URL bar and make sure extensions.zotero.debug.log is set to true.

    2. Close Firefox, and then restart it via the command prompt:
    Windows
    a) Start, Run, cmd
    b) cd C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
    c) firefox.exe -console

    Mac
    a) Open Terminal.app
    b) /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox
  • lwc
    edited July 12, 2007
    sean,

    I am having the same issue with EZProxy and below is what I got (at the Mac OS X Terminal display) after following your instruction.

    I was trying to save an IEEE Xplore article through MIT library's EZProxy. The citation was saved, together with a snapshot called "IEEE Explore Full Text PDF" which turned out not to be a pdf file but the html page asking me to log in for access.

    This will be rather long and I am not sure if it will fit in a single post. If there is an email I could send to, please let me know.
  • sean,

    it seems that the log is too long to be fit in a single post. if there is an email address that it can be sent to, please let me know.

    thanks
  • lwc: You can send it to support@zo.....org
  • edited May 22, 2007
    I am having the same problem as Cartesian with my EZProxy for Texas A&M when using MedLine (PubMed). However, I have found that I am able to pull down citations in Zotero when searching Medline (Ovid) and JSTOR with EZProxy connection. Is this significant?

    (edited since I discovered I'm only having the problem with PubMed)
  • The best we can suggest is for anyone who's experiencing this to install the LiveHTTPHeaders extension and send us the output (clearing the headers right before clicking the URL bar icon and clicking Save All right after). That might give us clues as to why Zotero isn't detecting the EZProxy connection on certain library sites.
  • ok sending what i think you're asking for now...
  • edited June 15, 2007
    Anything new on this one?

    Zotero isn't detecting the EZProxy connnection at my institution too, which in turn creates problems with ieeexplore, sciencedirect and others (gets the citation info but fails to retrieve the pdfs). Using 1.0 b4-r5 and Firefox 2.0.0.2 under linux

    Let me know if you need more debugging information.

    Could this be resolved with an additional configuration option? Basically have the user specify that EZProxy is used and what is appended to the regular url.
  • I'm having the same trouble with my U. Chicago proxy (this is likely a big problem for many of us now, since academics in the northern hemisphere will mostly be on summer break and away from the university). Any suggestions on this out there?
  • Could this be resolved with an additional configuration option? Basically have the user specify that EZProxy is used and what is appended to the regular url.
    This may be one way to go. I'll talk to Simon (who wrote our EZProxy code) about it.

    One question for people having problems with EZProxy: when you authenticate with your institution's server, is it on a different domain from the one on which you browse catalogs? The current code looks for a particular response from the EZProxy server when you log in, but if that happens on a different domain Zotero wouldn't detect the use of EZProxy on the second domain. It's possible we could change the code to support such setups (which use a cookie to track the EZProxy session), but it'd be good to know if there are other issues as well.
  • Well it seems that - in my case at least - the authentication takes place in a different domain and it is done by cookies.

    I've saved the HTTP headers for the whole process (authentication to reference retrieval), let me know if you need it.
  • dalai: Thanks. If you could send the headers to support@zo.....org, that'd be great. Be sure to strip out any passwords before sending.

    We'll see if we can get this working with the EZProxy cookie setup.
  • ok I've just sent it.
  • Using Harvard's EZProxy, I am indeed taken to a different domain for authentication. I have emailed you the LiveHTTPHeaders for a representative issue with Google Scholar. I just ran a couple of tests on JSTOR as well, but couldn't reproduce a problem so far today!
  • Well, I've run into the EZProxy problem with JSTOR again, at this URL (trying to save a paper called "Intention and Means-End Reasoning" by Michael Bratman):
    http://www.jstor.org.ezp1.harvard.edu/view/00318108/di981303/98p02932/0#&origin=sfx%3Asfx

    This issue is still killing EZProxy users - any news on an upcoming fix?
  • I'm having the same problem with all JSTOR documents--also at Harvard. Love zotero, but this does make it a LOT less useful. Please help!
  • same problem w/ fulltext Pubmed at Harvard....
  • Similar problem:
    Our university uses a proxy-solution from juniper networks which changes the above link:
    http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=Mozilla-search&q="Dispositional+theories+of+value"
    into:
    https://crypto.unil.ch/scholar,DanaInfo=scholar.google.com,SSO=U+?sourceid=Mozilla-search&q="Dispositional+theories+of+value"

    So it basically transforms
    http://domain/page?parameter
    into
    https://cryptoproxydomain/page,DanaInfo=domain,SSO=U+?parameter

    Not sure, how easy it would be to catch that and pass it on, but it shouldn't be too difficult. Would write it myself in Scaffold, with "DanaInfo" as target, but I have no idea how to pass it on to other translators.
  • I'm hope this problem remains on the A-list of concerns. Zotero remains inoperable on JStore and ProQuest via the EZProxy system at Lehigh University (and it sounds as if many other institutions as well).
  • I just wanted to report that the problems I've previously reported with respect to JSTOR on the Harvard ezproxy appear to be fixed. A big Thankyou to the developers!!!
  • edited August 30, 2007
    I just wanted to report that the problems I've previously reported with respect to JSTOR on the Harvard ezproxy appear to be fixed. A big Thankyou to the developers!!!
    Well, you're quite welcome, but I'm afraid we can't take credit for this, as we haven't made any changes to the code. Something must have changed on the Harvard site. We do have access to the Harvard library system now, however, so let us know if there are resources other than JSTOR that don't work.
This discussion has been closed.