Suppress Zotero Connector Installation Message

rsmithwright
Hello,

My institution uses a heavily locked down and secure environment for research due to the presence of PHI so we prevent our users from installing software. We just updated Zotero to the latest version and now every time a user launches the application a web browser is opened prompting the user to install the connector. Due to the secure nature of the research environment, we cannot allow the connector to be installed. Is there a way to suppress this event and prevent the launch of the web browser with the message to install the connector?
  • dstillman
    That only happens when Zotero is first installed. If you’re getting it every time you launch it, something on your computer is preventing Zotero from writing to the prefs.js file in the Zotero profile directory, which would also prevent all other settings from being saved. You’ll need to fix that to have normal Zotero functionality.
  • swicksaub
    We have a similar issue where we want to suppress the default browser from opening after launching Zotero for the first time. I appreciate this only happens once, per user per device but we would we would prefer not to see the connector message at all, especially in a lab setting. What is the best approach to achieve this using MDM solutions such as Jamf Pro and InTune?
  • dstillman
    @swicksaub: It's extensions.zotero.firstRun2 in about:config (i.e., prefs.js in the Zotero profile directory, which is the same as a Firefox profile directory).
  • swicksaub
    @dstillman thanks for the info, how can I set this to false for all users? I'm guessing that each person who logs on will have a different profile created but I would like the setting to be false for every user.
  • dstillman
    edited March 10, 2022
    You'd need to pre-create the profile and add the appropriate line to prefs.js. If you do that, that can (and should) be the only line in prefs.js, to let everything else be set to the default.

    Any other technique that worked as of Firefox 60 for changing default Firefox preferences should also work, but you'd have to research and test those.
  • swicksaub
    Won't this preference be reset to 'true' when a new user logs on as this creates a new Zotero user profile? How can this setting be set to false for new users? For example, for our Mac users, can this setting be configuration profile set at the computer level?
  • dstillman
    That’s why I’m saying you’d pre-create a Zotero profile as part of the user’s home dir template. You probably only need profiles.ini, the folders, and a prefs.js with one line. The rest should be auto-created. But you’d have to test that.
  • swicksaub
    Apologies, I don't understand how I can pre-create the user profile for Zotero if a new one is created when the user opens Zotero for the first time?
    Do you mean the default user template will need to have the Zotero prefs set so new users pick up the settings? How does this work if the profile folder has a random string as it's name?
  • dstillman
    edited March 10, 2022
    The name can be whatever you set in profiles.ini.

    Take a look at the files and I think you’ll understand.
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