OK ... this may be the dumbest question ever, but please bear with me, this "adding physical memory," how do I do it? Do you mean something like allocating memory for use of zotero, or do you mean by adding physical memory to my hard drive to boost the overall performance of my computer?

Also, what do you mean by keeping zotero "window" open? Do you mean it like use one Firefox window specifically designated to zotero activities? Does that really help?

I don't believe I have turned on syncing -- I haven't done it myself but I have been getting the zotero updates though.

are you using 1.0 or 2.0? 2.0 is a lot faster.
"Physical Memory" refers to buying an extra part for your computer - so called RAM - and putting it in. If your computer was relatively cheap or is a couple of years old that's relevant - if your RAM is less then 3GB increasing it will probably help. It's not very expensive these days. (I think in windows you can find out your RAM size either on the task manager (ctr+alt+del), or by right-clicking on Computer and selecting Property.

Finally, how large is your library? If you have a very large library, Zotero does slow down.
You can speed it up by disabling indexing (i.e. the fact that Zotero "remembers" what's in your pdfs).
Gears menu - preferences - search and set all the fields to 0.

For syncing see: http://www.zotero.org/support/sync

I'm especially impatient about the speed while loading libraries, especially my main library is really slow

Just to reiterate what I said on the thread alandsloane linked to above: the initial loading of the library only happens the first time the Zotero pane is opened in a Firefox session, so if there's always at least one Firefox window open, opening the Zotero pane after that should be instantaneous.

I don't know exact size of my library, but it has a lot of stuff in it!

http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/item_count

it's hard to say what exactly is causing it - but the behavior you describe is not normal.
Zotero does open instantaneously when you've had it open once. Certainly nothing in the "seconds" category.
There is absolutely no delay moving items around. And I'm on a slower machine.

(Btw. be a little careful with your terminology so that people will continue to understand what you are saying. There is just one library in Zotero. It can be organized using collections and subcollections. Usually, if you're dragging an item from one collection or the library to another one, you're not moving it, you're adding it to another collection (i.e. afterwards the same item will be in both collections.) So your "main" library is your only library and it's not just larger than the collections it has all items you have in Zotero in it.)

Dan has mentioned repeatedly that the dev team is always working on performance, as is the FF team.

Hi,

I had similar problems. Opening Firefox and then Zotero need a log time to load everything.

My solution was to disable everything in the Prefences/Sync Options. I'm also not using it, but the options are on by default.
(Thanks alandsloane)

br chris

My solution was to disable everything in the Prefences/Sync Options. I'm also not using it, but the options are on by default.

Zotero only syncs when you open the Zotero pane if you've entered your account information in the Sync pane of the Zotero preferences and left "Sync automatically" enabled.

One thing I really like about zotero is this forum. Thanks for the feedback -- I love this program, so much, that I keep using this program even with this painful speed problem. I'm a little surprised that I seem to be one of few people who has this problem...I wonder some of the other Firefox add-ons are interfering with zotero.. but they shouldn't, should they?

I hope that I can resolve this problem one way or the other. I don't want to even think about going back to Endnote!

>Moving items in between collections is "seconds" category, too, for me.
>>How many items? A single item? 45 items? What format is the Quick Copy setting set to in the Export pane of your Zotero preferences? Does changing the format change the delay? And when exactly does this delay occur?

I usually move only a few items, 1 or 2, at most 20, rarely more than 50, but I do the smaller moves quite frequently.

Quick Copy setting in Export pane is all unchecked.

I changed the default format from Chicago (note without bib) to MLA but I didn't see much change.

One thing perhaps I should mention is that I change my format often. But I don't know if it's default or temporary changes. I do this by right-clicking on items, "create bib from this item," then choosing a style. Is this a problem?

The delay occurs when I drag the item from the central column to the left column to collections, after I drop off the items, there is a moment of "freeze." Firefox sometimes show (not responding) sign on the top but when you wait it usually disappears and I can work again.

I already mentioned the delay at loading, not just at the startup but when switching between collections.

Taking a snapshot from websites are really slow too.

OK, if the delay is on drop rather than drag, and only for a few items, it should absolutely be instantaneous. If you can provide a Debug ID for the drag, it might give us some idea what the issue is.

Does the number of items in the target collection affect the delay? In other words, do you get the same delay dragging to an empty collection?

You can also try disabling other Firefox extensions and checking your DB integrity in the Advanced pane fo the Zotero prefs, though neither seems likely to be related to this.

Is it still slow if you close the tag selector (by clicking in the center of the splitter above it to collapse it)?

I would like to share my recent experience. I work from home as well as from uni. I do not use the sync feature, rather, a USB flash drive (memory stick) as the location for the zotero library and attachments so that I can commute with it easily.

Over time I noticed zotero got frustratingly slow (5-30 secs) on basic operations like editing an item, capturing a webpage snapshot or attaching a file with PDF indexing on.

I run zotero 2.0b7.6 with 1000 items on firefox 3.5.7, WinXP and a very old Pentium 4 Mobile 1.6GHz and 1GB RAM.

I have now tested the write speed of the USB flash drive and it averaged out at about 1MBps for larger files and even less for smaller files. I have now copied all the files from the USB flash drive onto my hard disk drive and run zotero from there. The speed is back at instantaneous levels.

My advice is: for your library, use the fastest storage device possible.