Problem with Google docs Zotero

llambourne
Report ID: 253837894

The citations and bibliography on my google docs document have broken. They appear as normal text, no longer showing the 'edit in Zotero' option. If I click 'Add/edit bibliography' I get "Zotero experienced an error updating your document." and "{Updating}" in blue text is pasted into the document.

Zotero 5.0.66
macOS Siera 10.12.6
Google Chrome 74.0.3729.108
  • dstillman
    Has this document been in Google Docs the whole time, or did you export and import it from another format?

    If the former, you can try making a copy of the document in Google Docs or copying and pasting to another document and seeing if it works in a new document. @adomasven may have other suggestions.
  • llambourne
    It's been on Google Docs the whole time. I tried making a copy of the document (using File > Make a copy) and got the same error in the copy. I tried deleting both halves of the document, as per the debug instructions, and tried deleting everything except a single citation, tried with a couple of different citations and every time got the same error.
  • dstillman
    If you don't mind, could you make a copy of the smallest portion of the document that triggers the error and send a link to support@zotero.org, along with a link to this thread?
  • llambourne
    Just sent the email.
  • adomasven
    If you do not get the "Edit with Zotero" link in Google Docs it means that your citations are effectively unlinked -- not connected to Zotero. I could not say what caused this. You could try looking at the google docs revision history for a version of the document that works normally.

    As for the error, you are getting it because you are trying to insert a bibliography without having any citations. Zotero is not displaying the proper error and we will fix this for the next version.
  • llambourne
    I see. I guess it could be possible that the citations became unlinked because this was a copy of the original document with the linked citations made by someone without Zotero installed.

    Thanks for your help!
  • dstillman
    edited April 30, 2019
    It's fine for multiple people to use Google Docs to collaborate on the document, whether or not they have Zotero installed, but if somebody, say, copied the text into Word and copied it back, that would flatten all the citations.
  • llambourne
    The copy was made in google docs using File > Make a copy, so maybe that wasn't what caused the unlinking of the citations.

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