Zotero crashes repeatedly on trying to open a specific PDF file

PaulS42
This file is not new, I've been using/reading/annotating it for almost two years at this point, but now it's causing repeated crashes.

I've tried disabling the automatic sync, as that was suggested in another similar thread, but that didn't do anything. I'm also trying to create a log output of this event but since the crash closes the entire program, this disables the logging on the next open. Please advise on how to continue the logging through the crash?

By crash I mean that the whole computer freezes for anywhere between a second and 10 seconds, then all Zotero windows disappear completely. There's no error message or anything.

I'm on Linux Mint, running everything at the most current version.

Thanks!

I tried "enabling" Logging, so maybe this worked: D2016582778
  • PaulS42
    edited February 10, 2023
    Now it's also crashing with other documents... Though this time it lagged out the computer for upwards of two minutes before actually crashing/closing.

    I'm getting an error message now though:

    A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete.

    Script: resource://zotero/pdf-reader/viewer.js:11807
  • PaulS42
    After a reboot of the PC I could open that PDF and use it for a while, but it just crashed again when I tried going back to it.
  • adamsmith
    Is this a very large PDF (i.e in MB)? How many annotations, roughly, do you have on it?
  • PaulS42
    It has about 606 MB, and a lot of annotations, maybe a hundred or two? It's the main book of my thesis. I'm guessing that the file size plus annotation are the issue, but is there any way to alleviate this?
  • adamsmith
    Someone developing on the pdf reader may have more insight, but yeah, I'd expect this really is just a size problem. One thing you could try is to optimize the PDF, compressing some of the image size. Acrobat Pro has a function for that, you may be able to find something for free, too. Obviously keep a copy of the uncompressed one in case compression messes up something (which does happen)
  • PaulS42
    all right, thanks! I'll try and see if I find something I can do about that.
  • PaulS42
    Hi again, I haven't had the chance to test whether compressing the PDF would work, but I just had a crash when opening a PDF with 7.9 MB. In fact I've been having a looot of crashes in the last few days. Some, if not most, crashes are likely because of the file size, but I'm also having them on smaller files. Any ideas on how I could fix this? thanks :)
  • dstillman
    What kind of crash? The same thing with "Script: resource://zotero/pdf-reader/viewer.js", or something else?

    Problems with a 600 MB file are totally unsurprising, but obviously an 8 MB file should be fine. Can you reproduce it with that file?

    The debug output doesn't actually show it happening, though. Can you provide a Debug ID that captures the opening? (You should also disable all third-party plugins while trying to reproduce this and generating debug output.)
  • PaulS42
    Sorry for the delay. The crash would just be the program closing with no error or anything. And I've just finished my thesis so I've not been getting any more crashes but if I do I'll try and capture it in debug mode.
    Also it might have to do with this PC, I've been getting a lot of freezes lately, not only with Zotero, so this might be connected.
    Thanks though!
Sign In or Register to comment.