A new wrinkle - having somehow lost the connector, I deleted Zotero starting at Safari Extensions, downloaded and installed the latest beta, which promises the connector is built in. After installation, browse to a suitable web page (PubMed search), still no connector. Open Safari Preferences and see the connector, with its box unchecked. Try checking it. The box will not respond to clicking - I cannot enable the connector. Going back to Zotero home page, I follow Install Safari Connector link. It brings me back to this forum and directs me to use latest beta. Eagerly awaiting instructions on how to proceed. Having reinstalled the beta in various releases at least a dozen times, I am ready for a released version - when will you be? I thought you were there, but I cannot get operational by following available links and instructions.
@james.k.russell: I'm afraid there's nothing new here. As we've explained, due to a bug in macOS, the extension can disappear after an app update, so you need to close Safari, delete the beta app from Applications, redownload it, and re-enable the connector in the Safari Extensions pane. Once it's running, it works fine — there've been only a couple minor bug fixes in the last few months. But we don't currently have a workaround for this problem, and the connector will need to stay in the beta until that's resolved.
Note that, since you don't actually need to run the beta app more than once after each update, and since the beta app won't update itself unless you open it, once you have a working version of the extension it should stay installed, while you continue to use and update the release version of Zotero normally. So this is really only a problem if you want to use the beta app itself as your version of Zotero. (If you don't, you should still periodically delete and redownload the beta and run it once to make sure you have the latest version of the extension.)
I've successfully followed the instructions several times before. This is the first time I've encountered this situation: Zotero app is beta (5.0.87-beta.7+c9e90417e). It installs and works successfully. I can capture citations using Firefox and its extension. When I go to Safari Preferences/Extensions, the Zotero Connector appears there, with an unchecked box in the left column. When I click on the box, it remains unchecked. This is repeatable. I've done the whole process several times, including rebooting my computer in between attempts. One thing that differs from my earlier successful experiences is that I had to rebuild my hard drive in between, for an unrelated issue.
One reflection of this status may be that I just installed 5.0.87. The operating system noted that a newer version was in Apps, and asked what to do. I told it to replace the beta. On opening the released version, there is now no Zotero Connector shown in Safari-Preferences/Extensions. So, it is evident that I did not successfully install the Connector when I installed the beta.
Unless there's some alternative series of steps I should try, it seems I'll have to either use Firefox, or use Add items by identifier. Either works.
If there is some alternative series of steps you'd like me to try, let me know.
Still love Zotero, and recommend it to my colleagues.
@james.k.russell: Nothing has changed. Make sure you've actually deleted the Zotero beta from Applications before reinstalling it. Replacing it likely isn't enough.
On opening the released version, there is now no Zotero Connector shown in Safari-Preferences/Extensions. So, it is evident that I did not successfully install the Connector when I installed the beta.
This is a misunderstanding. The extension isn't installed into Safari in any sort of permanent way. With Safari App Extensions, the extension is part of the app and is just loaded into Safari from the app bundle. Once you delete the app, the extension disappears from Safari.
Can I just ask why Zotero is specifically affected by this bug? I have a number of apps with Safari extensions, including a couple from outside the Mac App Store, and their extensions survive app updates just fine.
I installed the beta, and the safari connector extension shows up, checked, under "extensions." However, when I pull up an article I want to cite, I see no button that allows me to save the citation. Am I missing something? Thank you for any suggestions.
@evarosen: Nothing to do with the page you're viewing. When the extension is enabled, you should see a save button in your Safari toolbar. You can right-click on the toolbar and choose "Customize Toolbar…" to see if it's just hidden. Restarting your computer and/or deleting and reinstalling the Zotero beta from Applications might help.
@vladimirbizik: We're not actually sure. Our best guess is that it's something about the order in which files are updated, with macOS checking the app and plugin signatures too early and then improperly caching the result. We don't have much control over the updater — we inherited it from the Mozilla platform Zotero is based on — but we're going to see if we can adjust the update process at all to fix this.
@dstillman thanks for the suggestion. I have reinstalled Zotero and restarted safari and the computer several times but still no luck - the save button has not appeared, even though the extension is enabled. Any other suggestions?
@dstillman I've read the first post in this thread, however the extension does not show on Safari, and when I search for it, it does not show... Maybe there something I have done wrong? The extension on word works perfectly...
@yuqianw: A Safari App Extension is part of a Mac app, in this case the current beta version of Zotero. As explained in the first post in this thread, you may need to enable it in Safari after running the Zotero beta.
I had beta version 5.0.88-beta.10+482b8b6f7 installed. Safari connector was working fin until I restarted my machine, and it has simply disappeared. I updated Zotero to beta version 5.0.88-beta.11+01b8b550b and the connector appears to be working now. Had to launch Zotero, quit and relaunched again.
The Zotero Connector was working decently well for me in the betas, but disappeared when I upgraded to the final version of 5.0.88. Was it intentionally removed, or is this a bug?
I caught part of the WWDC announcement yesterday regarding Apple's next macOS and Safari update. It sounded like there would be a number of changes to extensions in Safari that would simplify 3rd party extension creation. Is there any sense from your perspective that this will make bringing Zotero connector back to Safari easier or more difficult?
We're still testing, but yes, in Safari 14 we expect to finally be able to support Safari using more or less the same version of the Zotero Connector we use in other browsers. They're not currently implementing all functionality offered by the other browsers, so some features may still not be possible, but it should much more closely resemble the standard version going forward.
(Needless to say, this would've been helpful a year ago, before people lost many of the extensions they relied on and before developers wasted massive amounts of time trying to build partial replacements using a limited, proprietary, poorly supported, buggy framework, but, better late than never.)
For obvious reasons, we're not going to continue to work on the Safari App Extension version to try to solve the disappearance-on-app-update issue, but we'll leave it in the beta until a replacement is available.
I'm a Mac user and recently downloaded Zotero (release version) and have been using with Firefox. As my default browser is Safari (and I don't think I can specify for Zotero to use Firefox? Correct me if I'm wrong?)... I downloaded the Beta version so I could have a Safari connector.
Zotero seems to be working fine still in Firefox but I'm not tech savvy so was wondering if I have caused any problems by using the Beta version so I can have both a Firefox and Safari connector? Should I go back to just using the release version and Firefox?
@carlsh: The Zotero beta is safe to use, but the beta app also only needs to be present in Applications for you to have the beta Safari connector. You can just name that "Zotero Beta" and use the release version at "Zotero" to actually use Zotero.
Yes, as long as you have the Zotero Beta in your Applications folder you will also have the Safari Connector, which will work well with the non-beta Zotero client. You may also mix Safari and Firefox connectors with Zotero, there won't be any conflicts and both can work at the same time simultaneously.
The plugin for safari works extremely poorly. Most of the time when I click on the button to import something, the box appears in the upper right corner briefly, does nothing, and then disappears without importing. This is in contrast to the google chrome button which works very well.
@mhsnyder: While the beta connector for Safari 13 should work, and as far as we know does for most people who've tried it, as explained above the next version of Safari coming this fall will support the same type of extension as Chrome and Firefox, and we plan to again offer a stable version for Safari at that time that works the same as in those browsers. More details on all of this on the Safari Compatibility page.
Upgrade Storage
Now I can't get Zotfile and WORD for Mac tools to work. Would the connector beta have impacts to how these ad ons work?
Going back to Zotero home page, I follow Install Safari Connector link. It brings me back to this forum and directs me to use latest beta.
Eagerly awaiting instructions on how to proceed. Having reinstalled the beta in various releases at least a dozen times, I am ready for a released version - when will you be? I thought you were there, but I cannot get operational by following available links and instructions.
Note that, since you don't actually need to run the beta app more than once after each update, and since the beta app won't update itself unless you open it, once you have a working version of the extension it should stay installed, while you continue to use and update the release version of Zotero normally. So this is really only a problem if you want to use the beta app itself as your version of Zotero. (If you don't, you should still periodically delete and redownload the beta and run it once to make sure you have the latest version of the extension.)
One reflection of this status may be that I just installed 5.0.87. The operating system noted that a newer version was in Apps, and asked what to do. I told it to replace the beta. On opening the released version, there is now no Zotero Connector shown in Safari-Preferences/Extensions. So, it is evident that I did not successfully install the Connector when I installed the beta.
Unless there's some alternative series of steps I should try, it seems I'll have to either use Firefox, or use Add items by identifier. Either works.
If there is some alternative series of steps you'd like me to try, let me know.
Still love Zotero, and recommend it to my colleagues.
I updated Zotero to beta version 5.0.88-beta.11+01b8b550b and the connector appears to be working now. Had to launch Zotero, quit and relaunched again.
(Needless to say, this would've been helpful a year ago, before people lost many of the extensions they relied on and before developers wasted massive amounts of time trying to build partial replacements using a limited, proprietary, poorly supported, buggy framework, but, better late than never.)
I'm a Mac user and recently downloaded Zotero (release version) and have been using with Firefox. As my default browser is Safari (and I don't think I can specify for Zotero to use Firefox? Correct me if I'm wrong?)... I downloaded the Beta version so I could have a Safari connector.
Zotero seems to be working fine still in Firefox but I'm not tech savvy so was wondering if I have caused any problems by using the Beta version so I can have both a Firefox and Safari connector? Should I go back to just using the release version and Firefox?
Sorry for the dumb questions, I'm out of my element!