Is Zotero fundamentally unreliable?

BernadetteCunningham
After much research I landed on Zotero to use with Word to type a PhD thesis on. It keeps saying: "You have modified this citation since Zotero generated it. Do you want to keep your modifications and prevent future updates?"

Now by slowly tracking through I have found Zotero duplicates references and changes page numbers. Do I dump Zotero and start again with an alternative programme? I am doing everything correctly - page numbers in Zotero menu etc. It is very boring and quite concerning....
  • dstillman
    edited January 4, 2024
    https://www.zotero.org/support/forum_guidelines#etiquette

    If you're going to post here, please just ask your question politely like everyone else instead of using a hyperbolic, intentionally provocative title that's just going to annoy people.
    You have modified this citation since Zotero generated it. Do you want to keep your modifications and prevent future updates?
    You would get this message if you — intentionally or otherwise — edited citations directly in the document instead of customizing them properly. You don't say what the actual modifications were that it reported, but that would be a clue as to how this happened. You'll want to reset those citations to their original states so that Zotero can update them properly. You can do that by 1) saying "No" to this question and 2) for existing ones where you previously told it to keep your edits, by clicking on them, clicking Add/Edit Citation, and telling it to reset the citations when prompted.
    Now by slowly tracking through I have found Zotero duplicates references and changes page numbers.
    I don't know what you mean by this. Zotero does not duplicate references unless you insert different copies of an item into the document. See https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/given_name_disambiguation#other_causes for details — that's about a different situation, but the causes would be the same.

    Beyond this, you'd need to provide more details, with specific examples. It's just not really clear what the actual problems are that you're experiencing.
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited January 4, 2024
    Writing a doctoral thesis is among the most stressful events in one's life. Take a breath and provide more specific details about your problem.

    I have used reference management software since the early 1980s (even before MS DOS and Windows existed). I've used several different programs. I switched from EndNote to Zotero in the middle of writing my doctoral thesis in the mid 2000s. Zotero was more stable and reliable, even then, than other similar commercial products. For gathering metadata of journal articles and for writing and citing it remains the best. (Every now and then someone in my office tries other software.)

    Answer the question about what word processor you are using. Unless is is a very old version or something unusual; it should be easy to find what is causing the problems. What citation style are you using? Can you tell us what changes and how you are editing the document citation?

    You may need to make a change in the way you go back and make edits . The quality of tech support with Zotero is extraordinary. Even after a hostile-sounding request, you received a polite reply from the lead developer of Zotero software.

  • BernadetteCunningham
    I'm very sorry for my provocative language - I won't do that again. And thank you for helping me despite me annoying you! And thank you to DWL-SDCA for confirming Zotero is the best product - I thought I did comprehensive research before selecting it, therefore the concern when it appears not to be working.

    Is there a way of going through the citations in "developer mode" (showing the code) to see which ones I have inputted incorrectly? I am using Microsoft Word for Mac version 16.80 on a microsoft 365 licence. I can see the code now has {don't update} written in.

    It appears to have updated the same publication, that is used one after the other in the references, with the same page number. First one was 224 then second was 219. They are now both 224 - hence my concern.
  • dstillman
    edited January 5, 2024
    Is there a way of going through the citations in "developer mode" (showing the code) to see which ones I have inputted incorrectly?
    Yes, you can toggle Word field codes to look at the underlying code and search for dontUpdate, and then click Add/Edit Citation on those and tell it to clear your modification. Be sure to toggle field codes back off before clicking Add/Edit Citation — editing it while it's showing the field code might mess things up.

    For other problems, you might need to follow the last step on the Troubleshooting Errors in Word Processor Documents page to identify genuinely broken citations, but I'd start by making sure you don't have any manually edited citations that aren't being updated.
  • BernadetteCunningham
    Hi there, I was trying to go through the references one at a time - and I can see an early reference when I was starting to use the software where the page number is put in manually but when I try to edit to correct, it all froze. After 10 mins I did force quit and got:

    "Zotero experienced an error updating your document." Any ideas? Will shut down again and reopen everything.
  • dstillman
    Just delete the citation and reinsert it.
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