PDF downloads not working with SwitchyOmega extension

This discussion was created from comments split from: ACM and IEEE PDF downloads not working via proxy.
  • I've been unable to save IEEEXplore pdfs lately too, e.g. D722323754.
  • edited April 10, 2021
    Downloading file from https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stampPDF/getPDF.jsp[…]

    Downloaded PDF was not a PDF

    @dvcirilo: What kind of connection is this? Direct institutional connection? VPN? System proxy? Web-based proxy? When you view the PDF in your browser, is the domain just ieeexplore.ieee.org or does it contain something related to your institution?
  • In this instance it's a http proxy via SwitchyOmega extension on Google Chrome. I've been using this setup for quite some time without issues, I'm not sure but maybe the problems started when I switched to the Zotero Beta client. When I use the institutional web based proxy it works fine, although it's not my preferred method.
  • Oh, that won't work. The Zotero app, which performs the actual file downloads, needs to be connecting via the same proxy as the browser. In the case of a web-based proxy, the Zotero Connector passes the cookies that make that possible. Otherwise, it has to be a system-level connection.
  • Yeah, it makes total sense, but I'm pretty sure it worked like that before. Maybe I'm mistaken.
    Anyways, thanks for the support!

  • No, this never would've been different in the standalone version of Zotero. If your browser's proxy server is controlled by a browser extension, the Zotero app would never have known anything about that.

    If you used the old "Zotero for Firefox" extension years ago (pre-2017), the browser's connection would have applied to downloads. For a few years Zotero has also downloaded open-access PDFs when they're available if it can't download a gated PDF.
  • Oh, and if you save directly to your online library with the Zotero app closed, the browser connection would apply. But that's otherwise a bit more limited.
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