Slow when using 'add by identifier' feature on Mac

jgraham84
Having an issue with using the 'add by identifier' feature to add books by ISBN. The query goes extremely slow and eventually times out after a minute or two without adding the book, even for common books which it should be able to locate. Any ideas?

Using 5.0.88-beta.11+01b8b550b on MacOS Mojave 10.14.6
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Can you provide a Debug ID for an attempt that's slow?
  • jgraham84
    Sure, here's from just now. D1146966101

    It says [JavaScript Error: "No items returned from any translator"] a bunch of times, but I've tried with several ISBNs and get the same thing. I can't believe it wouldn't find the books. When I throw the ISBN in Google, a dozen pages come up with the book.

  • adamsmith
    We'd want specific ISBNs you're trying. Zotero tries library catalogs for books (because those have reliable metadata) so very new books or books unlikely to be in (mostly Northern hemisphere) libraries wouldn't be imported.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    @jgraham84: A couple different problems here, likely related to the network you're on or security software you're running:
    (3)(+0170316): Translate: Could not find a result using Library of Congress ISBN -- trying next translator

    (3)(+0000001): HTTP GET http://lx2.loc.gov:210/LCDB?operation=searchRetrieve&version=1.1&query=bath.ISBN=^1119551447&maximumRecords=1 failed with status code 0
    First, a request to Library of Congress is failing. This works for me and successfully returns metadata.

    After this failure, Zotero is trying WorldCat, which should also work fine, and does for me. For you, it's returning some authentication/cookie-confirmation page instead of the RIS data you should be getting. That could be the case if you're in Europe, or if you're trying from an institutional network it could be some interaction with your institution's WorldCat subscription.

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