Zutillo installation : perhaps I'm a numbskull

DWL-SDCA
5.0.96-beta.4+cd63f96ee

I fear that I am missing something very basic. Please advise.

I've tried several times over the past year (every version since v3.2.0) to download from GitHub and install Zutillo on my Mac (10.15.7 (19H114)). I haven't written a help request before now because I thought that I was sufficiently savvy to be able to figure this out for myself but _No_. I cannot seem to download the xpi file using Firefox put I can capture the xpi file via Chrome by dragging and dropping it into my download folder. When I try to add it to Zotero Tools -Add-ons - Install add-ons from file and select the zutillo.xpi file. I receive the following error message:

The add-on "%S" could not be installed. It may be incompatible with this version of Zotero.



  • bwiernik
    To download the file in Firefox, right click on the link and choose Save Linked File As. If you just regular click on it, Firefox will try to install it itself (Firefox extensions are also labeled .xpi).

    I'm not sure what file you are downloading, but this is the current release Zutilo .xpi: https://github.com/wshanks/Zutilo/releases/download/v3.6.1/zutilo.xpi

    If you download that, then drag it onto the Zotero add-ons window, does that work? It works for me.
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited January 24, 2021
    @bwiernik Thank you!!

    Interesting. If I use the gear drop-down to install the add-on from file, I receive the error message in my earlier post. If I drag the file into the Add-ons manager it works.

    Thank you again.
  • bwiernik
    Could you submit a report ID from the help menu after you get that error, then give the ID here?
  • DWL-SDCA
    Report ID 670526002
  • bwiernik
    @dstillman Anything odd there?
  • dstillman
    WARN Invalid XPI: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x8052000b (NS_ERROR_FILE_CORRUPTED) [nsIZipReader.open]
    I'd guess that @DWL-SDCA is saving the HTML page rather than the raw XPI. One way or another, the file is invalid.
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited January 24, 2021
    But the same file when dragged to the add-ons window installs Zutillo without error. Would it be worthwhile for me to uninstall Zutillo and repeat the whole process with debugging active? If you have never had similar reports this could be somehow related to idiosyncrasies in my machine. It has been behaving strangely in many ways. If I don't restart every few days files take forever to open. .[I used Chrome safarito download the file because of the Firefox issue with wanting to install it in Firefox.]
  • dstillman
    edited January 24, 2021
    Are you sure you're testing with the same file? I'd guess that you'd find that there was a problem with that particular file, and that if you downloaded it again it would work. There shouldn't be any difference between dragging and using "Install Add-on From File…". I don't believe we've ever gotten any reports of a difference, and both work equally for me. This also is just the Firefox add-on system, so there'd be nothing for us to debug here in any case.

    (Note that you can certainly download the file in Firefox. You just need to use right-click and "Save Link As…" on the XPI link instead of left-clicking.)
  • qqbb
    @dstillman: There have been reports of similar installation problems that were related to issues with the profile:
    https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/issues/1483

    @DWL-SDCA: You could rename the .xpi file to .zip and try to open it. If the Zotero plugin is valid, the zip file should have a structure as explained here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/19246679.
  • dstillman
    edited January 26, 2021
    That seems like it was a problem with installing the plugin generally, though. I would expect dragging and adding via the filepicker to go through the exact same installation process and behave identically.
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