Even for shorter documents with about 50 or so citations and automatic refresh disabled, it takes a good 3-5 seconds for the citation editor (in Word for Mac) to show up to add or edit a citation.
What I have noticed recently is that if I double-click (rather than a single click like usual) the Add/Edit citation button, the citation editor shows up in less than a second. I'm not sure if this trick will work for large documents, but it may be worth a try.
This took a little bit of trial and error to reproduce. In both output logs, you will notice that the citation editor is invoked twice because I could not reproduce the delay after clearing the output from the previous run. The second of the two runs is the one that was slow or fast. The delay only occurs when at least about a minute or so passes in between invoking the citation editor. When started again within a few seconds, there is no delay.
Slow Opening: D1897924444. The edit button was single-clicked on the second run.
Fast Opening: D417689053. The edit button was double-clicked on the second run.
If it helps, here's an extension of log D417689053, where I invoked the citation editor a third time with a single-click: D1329195590 The third time, it took about 10 seconds to show up.
When not in debug mode, after starting Zotero the first time the citation editor is invoked it launches quickly but every time after that, it takes a long time to show (given that at least about a minute passes in between each time it is invoked).
OK, yeah, these appear to be exact 10-second pauses. Can you confirm that this doesn't happen if the Zotero window is at least partially visible on your screen, even if it's in the background?
This is most likely caused by macOS App Nap, which limits the processing time for apps with no visible elements on screen. We're looking into whether we can address this.
Looks like App Nap was the issue! I didn't even know about this "feature." I disabled it globally and the issue is now resolved. I am on a desktop computer so thankfully battery life is not an issue for me.
The slowdown does not happen when the Zotero window is partially visible, but only if the Zotero window is on the same monitor as the Word doc (or I suppose on the 'active' monitor). If I have the Zotero window on a secondary monitor (even if fully visible) or minimized, the citation dialog appears after a 10 second delay.
Upgrade Storage
What I have noticed recently is that if I double-click (rather than a single click like usual) the Add/Edit citation button, the citation editor shows up in less than a second. I'm not sure if this trick will work for large documents, but it may be worth a try.
Slow Opening: D1897924444.
The edit button was single-clicked on the second run.
Fast Opening: D417689053.
The edit button was double-clicked on the second run.
If it helps, here's an extension of log D417689053, where I invoked the citation editor a third time with a single-click: D1329195590
The third time, it took about 10 seconds to show up.
When not in debug mode, after starting Zotero the first time the citation editor is invoked it launches quickly but every time after that, it takes a long time to show (given that at least about a minute passes in between each time it is invoked).
This is most likely caused by macOS App Nap, which limits the processing time for apps with no visible elements on screen. We're looking into whether we can address this.
The slowdown does not happen when the Zotero window is partially visible, but only if the Zotero window is on the same monitor as the Word doc (or I suppose on the 'active' monitor). If I have the Zotero window on a secondary monitor (even if fully visible) or minimized, the citation dialog appears after a 10 second delay.
You should re-enable App Nap globally and update to that version, and then let us know if that fixes the problem for you.