@Konzertheld Please do post to the link above. This is a LibreOffice bug that has long been ignored or, perhaps, ranked as minimally important. It can only help if new comments are posted about this frustrating issue.

Update: The currenty advised workaround is to use bookmarks instead of reference marks. Indeed, I cannot reproduce the probems with bookmark-style citations. Are there any drawbacks other than not being able to use them as footnotes?

(Source: https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/cannot-exit-the-cross-reference/45964 )

I confess that when I must edit my LO document near a live ReferenceMark, I find it easier and quicker to delete the Zotero Mark and a few words before and after it. It only takes a few seconds to retype the text and reinsert the Zotero field. I've learned to accept my annoyance with the Document Foundation bug gatekeepers who degrade the importance of this LO bug. That doesn't mean that my recommendation for LO users to report the bug isn't important. It might help if all LO users here report the bug to the link given by @adomasven above.

Until the bug gatekeepers understand that writers of technical documents want to use LO and that this bug affects a wider population than Zotero users; this will remain a low priority.

This is _not_ a Zotero bug. Please re-read my comment immediately above. Please contact the Document Foundation and report this bug in LO Writer.

I have also had a similar behaviour in MSword before. So, for both LO and MSword I usually turn off the track change mode (does seem to help occasionally) and preempt the problem by double spacing and going back one with the left arrow key before inserting the reference.

I can confirm the linked fix in master fixed the problem for me. (I used the 7.6.0.1-1 build of libreoffice-dev-bin from the Arch User Repository.)

I'm still experiencing this issue in Libreoffice Writer 7.6.5.2 from the Fedora rpm repo. Incredibly frustrating, help would be appreciated.

Sorry if this is idiotically obvious, or seems over-complicated, but the bug provoked this discussion and frustration for some people. My workaround is quick, now almost second nature, and I am not irritated by the bug:

1) Trapped in field after citation:
Delete trapped characters; with caret (text cursor, position) directly after the citation, press 'enter' (which creates carriage return and takes the caret down to a new line and out of the Zotero citation field); on the new line press 'space bar' to create blank space; press 'left arrow' key to move caret back one position to the start of that blank space (which is also start of the new line); press 'backspace' key which deletes carriage return and takes the caret back to the original line (caret should now be directly behind Zotero citation field); press the 'right arrow' key to move the caret forward one position to the start of that blank space; start typing.

2) Trapped in field before citation:
Delete trapped characters; with caret (text cursor, position) directly before the citation, press 'enter' (which creates carriage return and takes the caret and citation down to a new line); press 'up arrow' key to move the caret up to the original line (and out of the Zotero citation field); press 'space bar' to create blank space; press 'right arrow' key to move caret down to the start of the new line and directly in front of the Zotero citation field; press 'backspace' key, which deletes the original carriage return and takes the caret and citation back up to the original line; press the 'left arrow' key to take the caret to the front of the blank space; start typing.

Please tell me if there's an even easier workaround! In spite of these little challenges, Zotero keeps doing its job exceptionally well. The people that do this are outstanding IMHO.