Not able to post new citations

Dkicken
edited May 6, 2021
Dear Zotero Support,

I have been working in one document for an extensive amount of time. Unfortunately, I am not able to insert new citations since 1 or 2 days ago.

I can still insert new citations into a new word document.

I tried step 1,2,3 which did not help.

Step 4: Copying and pasting my document in a new document is not an option, since the document includes my thesis, which consitutes of 530 pages and combines various lay-outs.

Step 5: Duplicating the document did not fix anything

What did work is the deleting majority of the document. After deleting a large part I was able to insert a new citation again. Only, my question now is, how do I find the issue if my document has 530 pages?

Thanks in advance.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    edited May 6, 2021
    Step 10 on Troubleshooting Errors in Word Processor Documents explains exactly how to do that. The length of your document is irrelevant — it will always take no more ~10 steps.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    edited May 6, 2021
    Note, also, that in a large document, you'll want to have "Automatically update citations" in the plugin's Document Preferences window disabled while citing, and only do a Refresh to update the bibliography at the end (with periodic testing while you can be stop working for a while). Actually generating a bibliography in a document of that size could potentially take quite a while.
  • Dkicken
    edited May 6, 2021
    Thank you for your reply. I have done the following:

    First I deleted sections seperately and restoring them afterwards. This did not help.

    Thereafter, I deleted the same sections all together, now I could insert the source. Therefore, I assume that there are multiple broken citations. How do I solve this?
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Again, see Step 10.
  • Dkicken
    edited May 6, 2021
    I am sorry this is not working for me.

    Could we try it differently?

  • dstillman Zotero Team
    If you're not willing to follow the instructions we provide, then no, you're not going to be helped here.

    We write precise instructions and link to them when they're relevant. There is literally nothing else we can do for you at this point other than tell you to follow Step 10 on that page. It specifically addresses the possibility of multiple broken citations, so the fact that you're asking about that here suggests you haven't read it completely. The page also explains how to provide a document excerpt that demonstrates the problem for us to look at.

    If there's something you don't understand, quote it here and explain exactly what you don't understand. But there's no point asking for help another way.

    I understand you're stressed and have a deadline, but you're going to get the exact support as everyone else. No one is going to talk to you on the phone, no matter how many times you ask. If you want to fix this, you'll need to follow the same steps that everyone else follows.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    edited May 6, 2021
    @Dkicken: But just to back up a second, can you say what exactly the problem is that you're experiencing? When you say "I can still insert new citations into a new word document", what does that mean? What happens? Do you get an error, or does nothing happen? Because if nothing happens in a very large document, there's a very good chance you're just not waiting long enough and the troubleshooting steps are irrelevant — as it says, that page is specifically for if you get an error. If you cut down a large document into a much smaller document, you'd see the citation dialog much more quickly, but that doesn't mean there's a problem with the document.

    You also don't say if you've disabled "Automatically update citations" like I recommended above. If you haven't, there could certainly be a significant delay before anything happens.

This is an old discussion that has not been active in a long time. Before commenting here, you should strongly consider starting a new discussion instead. If you think the content of this discussion is still relevant, you can link to it from your new discussion.

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