Problem combining Authors
I've seen many threads on issues combining authors whose names have been spelt differently - but my problem is slightly different.
The answer in all those threads is to manually change the name to the same spelling, but if I do this after I have cited two works by an author with same last name different first name, even after I make the spellings match zotero continues to treat them as two different authors. Is there a way to force it to combine the authors?
The answer in all those threads is to manually change the name to the same spelling, but if I do this after I have cited two works by an author with same last name different first name, even after I make the spellings match zotero continues to treat them as two different authors. Is there a way to force it to combine the authors?
1. Refresh the Zotero citations and see if that helps.
2. Copy/paste into a new document and refresh.
3. Change the citation style to something else and refresh, then switch back and refresh again.
(Before doing any of that, I'd suggest saving a backup of your document!)
Sometimes earlier settings/properties are maintained until a full reset occurs, and in order to save time processing Zotero doesn't automatically do a full reset except with major changes. It might automatically catch up also if you were to keep using this and it had to decide about for example a new citation from one of the authors.
(A less likely possibility is that you have an orphaned citation in your document no longer connected to your library, but that doesn't sound like what you described.)
If none of that can work, of course you should be able to go back through all of those citations manually and replace them (perhaps delete them then replace, rather than just editing), but that probably isn't necessary if you try the steps above.
This is just like any other change to metadata, and it should update all the citations in the document when you click Refresh.
There are two main reasons why it wouldn't:
1) The citations are actually no longer linked to items in Zotero — e.g., because you deleted items in Zotero instead of merging them. You can verify that by clicking in a citation, clicking Add/Edit Citation, clicking the blue bubble, and seeing whether an "Open in My Library" button appears, as shown in Customizing Cites.
2) You previously edited the citation text directly and, when Zotero prompted you, chose to keep your edits instead of allowing Zotero to continue updating the citation automatically. If you click Add/Edit Citation on the citation, it will tell you that and ask if you want to revert your changes.
(There are also general document debugging steps, but those aren't usually necessary unless you're getting some sort of error from Zotero due to a corrupted citation.)
Of course I can't provide any more specific evidence or conditions for this, but more than a handful of times I've had something odd about a document fixed by more than just refreshing. And sometimes it seems like it eventually catches up if you just keep using the document. As I said, "echoes" of old settings. This happens for me sometimes, I believe, in the same situation as the OP, where I've updated something in my library and it doesn't immediately get caught in the normal refreshing of cites in a Word document (for example, the bibliography will keep being generated with the wrong information that I've already fixed in my library).
Sorry if my answer here is seen as disruptive or not a standard response. I'm just commenting on what's worked for me. And since this sort of "echo" doesn't ever seem to be permanent*, I don't see it as a big problem.
[*The exception would be if, as you said, the cite gets de-linked from your library.]
As I say, there are document debugging steps that can be used if something isn't working properly, and those include trying to change the citation style. But it's incorrect to suggest that there's some sort of standard expected situation where changes wouldn't be applied on Refresh. That would be a bug, and we'd want people to follow the debugging steps in full so that they could isolate the problem in a copy of the document and report it so that we can fix it going forward.
Refreshing refreshes. A second Refresh run is exactly the same as the first. There's literally no code-based difference. If it seems like a second refresh does something different, it's likely the first just was taking a while to run and it would've done the exact same thing if you had waited.
If something isn't working the way it's supposed to, we'd want a reproducible report of that, with a Debug ID, so that we can fix it instead of having people waste time with superstitions. But that starts with being clear about how the plugin is meant to work.
I will gladly let you know if I encounter this in a way that allows a Debug ID.
Thank you @jonotrain and @djross3, your solution of changing citation style and changing it back worked things out.
@dstillman there is a difference between how code is 'supposed' to work, and how it works. Code is not magic. Please let your users explain to you how your plugin works, because they will see many more instantiations of its behaviour than you will.
The plugin does not work like you (or I!) think it should. You should listen to your users, not gaslight them. We are trying to help you and all of us to improve this software we love.
I would be happy to work with you in squashing this bug.
As with above users, swapping citation format and back fixes the issue.
If I am able to consistently reproduce the error I will write up a bug report for you to look at.