Bibliography does not add / crashes document

CharisL
Hi all, I have been working with my document for weeks and now am experiencing major issues with Zotero. My report ID is: 872516948.

I am working with Zotero 6.0.23 on a mac pro (13.0.1) and am using the desktop plug in for word.

I am experiencing the following issue:
I am working in a large document with around 75 sources. I had disabled the "automatic updates" due to the number of sources. As of yesterday, the bibliography showed up in the middle of the document so I tried removing it and then adding it at the end of the document. But the add/edit bibliography button does not work. When I open the document, I can still click on all citations in the text and Zotero will tell me which ones these are (upon clicking on add/edit citation) - so I assume they are still active.

Everytime I try to add a new citation or click add/edit bibliography or click refresh it seems that Zotero crashes. Nothing happens and even worse: when I then click on the citations, it seems they are out of the sudden inactive, too.

I have tried the steps from the trouble shooting page but it am not making any progress. Step 11 was also not working - maybe they are multiple citations that are broken? Not sure.

When I open a new document I can use Zotero just fine - as long as I have not opened the "broken" (?) document yet. Once that document has been opened once, Zotero will not work anymore in the new document either and must be restarted.

I would be grateful for any tip!
  • dstillman
    edited April 11, 2023
    How long have you waited? In a large document, inserting a bibliography could easily take a while — Word for Mac integration is unfortunately just rather slow. (75 citations isn't really a lot, though…) Inserting citations will be fast with automatic updates disabled, but inserting the bibliography requires a full refresh.

    You should restart Zotero and reopen the document and try again, and let it go for a little while.
  • CharisL
    Hello and thank you for your advice.

    I have waited for up to 10 minutes and: previously the inserting of the bibliography/ the refreshing only took maybe a minute. Now whenever I try to insert the bibliography, none of the citations work anymore. Also, when I go to add a citation the document does not load the already cited in this documents ones as a suggestion anymore in the quick load field that opens. It seems almost as if inserting the bibliography (or at least the attempt thereof) cuts the connection between zotero and the word document.

    I would really really grateful if there are any other options to try.
  • dstillman
    edited April 11, 2023
    There's nothing to try other than 1) waiting longer or 2) following Step 11 and trying on smaller sections of the document. With only 75 citations, and if it only used to take a minute, you should try the latter. As noted on that page, you can also send us a copy of the document if you want us to take a look.

    Once it breaks, or if it's in the middle of processing, it'll be broken, so anything that happens after that is irrelevant. You'd need to restart Zotero and try again.
  • CharisL
    edited April 11, 2023
    I was not aware that I can send in the document as well. I will do that! Thank you very much for your fast responses!
  • dstillman
    Note that the email address is just for sending files — we're always going to respond here. We just need the file and the link to the relevant thread.

    I'm able to insert a new bibliography by completely deleting the old one, inserting a new one at the end, and waiting a few minutes, during which time Microsoft Word shows with a high CPU percentage in Activity Monitor.

    It does, however, pop up some warnings about modified citations with different citation numbers. We're looking into that. Have you ever manually modified the citation numbers in the text?
  • CharisL
    Thank you very much for your efforts. May I ask if you are working on Windows or Mac? Could that have something to do with it?

    Also, when I delete the bibliography: is it enough to just delete it with the erase key or is there another trick for Zotero to completely forget it so that I can insert a new one?

    I have not modified the citations manually.

    Thanks again!
  • dstillman
    Mac, obviously. Don't worry — we know what we're doing here. (And like I said, Word shows high CPU in Activity Monitor, which is the Mac performance monitor.)
    Also, when I delete the bibliography: is it enough to just delete it with the erase key or is there another trick for Zotero to completely forget it so that I can insert a new one?
    You can just select the entire gray area and delete it, but it's a little easier to right-click → Toggle Field Codes and delete just the much smaller placeholder.

    But if you didn't modify citations on purpose, let us take a look at it before you try this (unless you're in a rush, in which case you can make a note of the before/after for each modified citation and check them for correctness after).
  • CharisL
    I understand that you know what you are doing - unlike me. ;-) Sorry!

    I would greatly appreciate it if you could indeed take a look at it. Again thank you so much.
  • dstillman
    OK, so we've taken a look, and unfortunately there are about 5 citations that somehow got shifted by one. This is a bug, clearly, but it might happen if you edited the document while a long operation was in progress, particularly on macOS where this is slower. We're hoping to speed up Mac Word integration in a coming update, which will hopefully help avoid this sort of thing.

    For now, first, make sure you're running the latest version of Word. Then make a copy of the document, click Refresh, and wait for it to warn you about modified citations, which for me happens after a minute or two. Keep Word in the foreground, but you can keep Activity Monitor open to the CPU tab in the background, and you should see Word with a high CPU percentage while it's processing.

    If you get the modified-citation warnings, make a note of each Original and Modified pair, and say No to each. Since they're shifted by one, you can probably copy and paste all modified citations forwards by one, and then replace the first one with the correct citations.

    If you're not seeing the modified-citation warning after letting it go for five minutes or so, restart Zotero and open Help → Debug Output Logging → View Output and try again, and if it still doesn't work, submit the output and provide a Debug ID for the operation.

    Sorry for the trouble.
  • CharisL
    Thank you for the advice. Will give it a try and let you know how it goes.
  • CharisL
    Hello again, just wanted to say thank you for your quick help a few weeks back. I was able to solve the issue. All the best and keep up the good work!
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