Reference in Word is broken

onedayonenoodle
edited August 26, 2021
I kept receiving an error message from my document, and it prompted me to visit this page: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/debugging_broken_documents

Following the advice, I copied the content of my document to a blank document. Still the same error.

Then I removed all the field code, turning them into normal text, and copied the text to a blank document, still resulting in the same error.

Finally, I used Paste special .... > Formatted text (RTF) to a blank document, and tada, no error!

Or I thought so, but when I tried to edit, the same error....
  • dstillman
    You'll need to follow the steps through to the end to isolate the problematic part.
  • adamsmith
    If the error persists after pasting RTF, that's really odd though. What exactly is the error?
  • dstillman
    Yeah, just pasting RTF wouldn’t show a Zotero error, so this is some general Word problem. But the debugging steps would be how you would find the part of the document that’s breaking Word in any case.
  • onedayonenoodle
    Thanks. What i'm doing now is exactly that. Instead of copying the whole 50 pages, I'm copying (without field code) and adding references back again section by section while making backups. At some point, something will happen!

    I didn't take the screenshot, but the same error complaining that there was a problem.
  • dstillman
    That's not what it says to do, though. It says to do a binary search, cutting by halves. It takes no more than 10 cuts, regardless of the size of the document.
  • onedayonenoodle
    Somehow, the step by step copy and paste using RTF worked. Now the entire document is with fully updated references!

    Bad news is that I could not identify the source of the trouble.
  • onedayonenoodle
    edited August 27, 2021
    "Zotero experienced an error updating your document.

    Would you like to view troubleshooting instructions?"

    After saving the whole document, the same error came back!

    I suspect it could be file name...


    And it is!

    This name caused the above error:

    Nakamura_2017_BZ CZ in PD_Text_2021-08-26zot.docx

    Then I renamed the same file to

    Nakamura2017.docx

    and Zotero is working as normal.

    I thought I avoided including space, but I noticed there was a space (between BZ and CZ) in the bad name!
  • adomasven
    Could you submit a Report ID from Zotero after getting the document with the broken filename?
  • onedayonenoodle
    I was able to reproduce the issue perfectly.
    1868594579
  • adomasven
    Is this file saved on OneDrive? That might be the reason for the error, filenames with spaces don't work for some OneDrive users, but we have not been able to fix that yet.
  • onedayonenoodle
    Yes. It was on OneDrive and I had a space in the file name (but failed to see it)!
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