Zotero connector stopped working; resolved by disabling Better BibTex add-on.

zschrag
Yesterday I suddenly stopped being able to use the Zotero Connector. This morning I tried disabling Zotero add-ons, and disabling Better BibTex restored Zotero function. I post this here because the page on "Zotero Connector: “Is Zotero Running?” (https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/connector_zotero_unavailable) does not mention disabling Zotero add-ons as a troubleshooting step.
  • fuzhiyu
    Thanks! I upgraded to the latest beta and ran into the same issue, and disabling bbt solved it.

    My environment:

    version => 7.0.0-beta.77+adaa61f2c, os => macOS 14.4.1, Better BibTex for Zotero (6.7.186, extension, disabled)

  • dstillman
    @zschrag, @fuzhiyu: You'll want to report this to the BBT developer on GitHub.
  • emilianoeheyns
    I can't replicate this on Zotero 6 or 7, so I'll need @zschrag and/or @fuzhiyu to open an issue for this at https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/issues.
  • zschrag
    Thanks for the suggestion.

    The Bug Report/Feature request page at GitHub asked for a debug log. So I enabled logging, and that seems to have fixed the issue. So now I don't think I can replicate the issue either.

    When I had the problem, I was seeing an incomplete red progress circle and some message about translators.
  • emilianoeheyns
    If you disable logging, does the problem reappear? If so, please still send the debug log. It will be less informative but I might still learn something from it.
  • adomasven
    edited May 10, 2024
    Another user posted about this too. A bunch of
    [JavaScript Error: "HTTP request to http://127.0.0.1:23119/connector/getTranslators has timed out after 15000ms"]
    [JavaScript Error: "HTTP request to http://127.0.0.1:23119/connector/ping has timed out after 15000ms"]
    errors in their report log from the Connector. In the debug log from Zotero I see that some of the requests from the Connector never get a 200 OK (or 503) response. If BBT has some handlers in the Connector Server, and you have made recent changes there, you should look into those first.
  • emilianoeheyns
    BBT does have a number of handlers there, and I have changed one of the handlers in the past week, but not in a way that would readily explain this. Can you please point them to my github project? Since I can't replicate this myself I'll need a user that can.
  • emilianoeheyns
    If this is the problem, it would be pretty easy to diagnose, as I could just globally disable all http server endpoints. But I need someone that can replicate this.
  • emilianoeheyns
    edited May 13, 2024
    No one has come forward on github, and I have not been able to replicate the problem. I really want to solve this, but I'll need someone who actually experiences the problem for the diagnosis.
  • emilianoeheyns
    I have put out a new release that allows disabling all of BBTs HTTP server functionality at once, but that is still only useful if we find someone who has the problem.
  • dstillman
    More reports:

    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/114455/browser-suddenly-cannot-connect-to-desktop-app-on-linux-firefox-125
  • emilianoeheyns
    Still no one has come forward on github, and I can't reproduce it myself. So there's currently nothing I can do.
  • emilianoeheyns
    No one has come forward on the better bibtex github page yet. If you're experiencing this problem, *please* report on github. This is a problem that needs to get fixed urgently, and since I cannot reproduce the problem, I need help from someone who can.
  • prdpdx
    @emilianoeheyns, I'd be happy to help, but the problem went away after I disabled, enable, and updated BBT plugin. In fact, I restarted Zotero two or three times, and I think it might even have updated BBT twice. I wonder if there was an update pending that, for some reason, didn't occur via the normal process and was stuck? If there is a way to downgrade, I guess I could try, but I don't know how to do that, not that I tried to find out. And now, Zotero says BBT will update again after my next restart, so who knows how many version back I might need to go to reveal the problem. But, the symptoms are very conclusive. Linux + Firefox.
  • emilianoeheyns
    @prdpdx please try version 6.7.190. If you can reproduce on that, we can take it from there.
  • petemaB
    Had the same problem here, but just as prdpdx disabling and reenabling BBT fixed it.
  • prdpdx
    @emilianoeheyns I was not able to reproduce with 6.7.190, but I was able to reproduce with 6.7.192!
  • prdpdx
    BTW, I notice an error on start up with 192 installed, something about BBT not initializing properly.
  • emilianoeheyns
    edited May 20, 2024
    @petemaB I have seen that before for this problem but actually doesn't help me with diagnosis :(

    @prdpdx can you please join on github? I really, really want to get this fixed but the Zotero forums really aren't great for support for me.

    The only thing I changed between 190 and 192 is that you can optionally turn off all http endpoints, but by default, they're all on, so there should be no functional difference between the two for you, as I haven't documented the switch to turn them off; in addition, there's another problem where Zotero.Translators.init is not returning for some people, which would explain the startup error, but without the logging I have available through github, it's all guesswork, and I'd very much like to take the guesswork out of this.

    Having this bug out there where people are saying "uninstalling/disabling BBT fixes it" without me having any opportunity to fix it is pretty stressful. Please help me help you, people.
  • prdpdx
    Sure, happy to. I guess I'll start a new issue. You can close it if that's not what you wanted.
  • emilianoeheyns
    @prdpdx .201 has a workaround for the startup problem
  • emilianoeheyns
    And that apparently doesn't solve it for everyone. If you are experiencing this, please still join https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/issues/2887. If you're experiencing this on Linux or MacOS especially, please join; I'm looking for a copy of a profile that reliably reproduces this problem, and I have access to those platforms.
  • emilianoeheyns
    I've rolled out a new release that I think solves the issue. Please let me know whether it does.
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