Problem with automatic generation of citation keys on bib file import

cwcompto
Hi! I am investigating how Zotero functions with my usual workflow and have found a problem with the automatic generation of citation keys. My work setup is: Zotero version 5.0.95.1 and Better Bibtex for Zotero 2.2.110.
I frequently import a .bib file generated from Scopus with multiple references, and would like automatic generation of the citekey. I have set the "Citation key format" in Zotero Preferences to "[auth:capitalize][year]".
On import into My Library, Zotero is adding additional numbers to the Citation Key. For example, the header and first entry of my .bib file produced by Scopus is:

Scopus
EXPORT DATE: 29 January 2021

@ARTICLE{Yue20212074,
author={Yue, X. and Steeneveld, W. and van der Voort, M. and van Schaik, G. and Vernooij, J.C.M. and van Duijn, L. and Veldhuis, A.M.B. and Hogeveen, H.},
title={The effect of bovine viral diarrhea virus introduction on milk production of Dutch dairy herds},
journal={Journal of Dairy Science},
year={2021},
volume={104},
number={2},
pages={2074-2086},
doi={10.3168/jds.2020-18866},
note={cited By 0},
url={https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85097795061&doi=10.3168/jds.2020-18866&partnerID=40&md5=8b73c3c9e3bbdfe89322e4976b4d9e42},
abstract={Dairy cows .... DELETED REMAINDER FOR READABILITY© 2021 American Dairy Science Association},
document_type={Article},
source={Scopus},
}

And the citation key generated after importing into Zotero is:

"Yue20212074"

The problem is with the digits "074" added after the publication year (2021).

Is there a solution to prevent this behaviour and produce the intended citation key "Yue2021"?

Thanks in advance for any help offered.
  • dstillman
    To be clear, this is entirely about Better BibTeX, so this is a question for @emilianoeheyns, who generally prefers you post to the BBT issue tracker on GitHub.
  • qqbb
    @cwcompto: When importing a BibTeX database, BBT imports citation keys by default. You can change this with this hidden preference. In Zotero's Config Editor, search for better-bibtex*import* and toggle the importCitationKey preference.

    Imported citation keys are "pinned", see here. If you unpin them, the imported keys will be removed. For unpinning citation keys, right-click your Zotero items and select "Better BibTeX" -> "Unpin BibTeX key" in the item context menu.
  • emilianoeheyns
    https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/installation/preferences/hidden-preferences/#importcitationkey

    Read the top of the page for instructions on how to apply it. If that isn't clear, I do indeed prefer an issue being opened on github. My support workflow is built around it.
  • qqbb
    @emilianoeheyns: same minute :-)
  • cwcompto
    Thanks dstillman, qqbb and emilianoeheyns for your replies. Sorry, should have started with emilianoeheyns.

    Following your direction to the hidden preferences and a closer inspection of what Scopus was exporting, I now understand the problem. Scopus was adding the citation keys that were then passed through to My Library (the default behaviour). This is also exactly what you want if you are importing references from previous libraries, as I had done when importing a JabRef library. What confused me was that JabRef had added it's own keys to Scopus references (the default behaviour), and I had expected (naively) the same.

    In the future I will probably leave the hidden preference for importCitationKey with it's default setting so I don't get confused with this behaviour, and just delete the Scopus keys in the .bib file before importing into Zotero.

    Otherwise, I am enjoying my initial Zotero experience, the attention to Biblatex users and of course the great support!
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