Zotero Freezes When I Try to Delete Anything

chrisalbon
My Zotero database works fine, except it freezes whenever I try to delete an item. Any suggestions?

When I make a new database I can delete items just fine. I cannot import the entries into this new database... I can export my entries into an RDF file but then when I try to import it says it cannot find a translator for the RDF file...

This is frustrating.
  • Nicolae
    Use you rc3 version?
    Nicolae
  • dstillman
    Does it just take a while, or do you have to restart Firefox?

    How many items do you have in your database? (Select all items in the middle pane and look in the right pane.)

    If you're using RC3, go to the Advanced tab and run an integrity check on your database. If you get errors, you might try our automated DB repair tool.

    If you don't mind sending the RDF file to support@zot....org, we can take a look to see why it doesn't import correctly.
  • chrisalbon
    Nicolae, I am using rc3. In fact I reinstalled Zotero to make sure everything was up to date.

    Dan, when I delete an entry it instantly says firefox is not responding. I ran integrity check and it said I had no problems. I will email you the RDF file now.

    Thanks to you both.
  • chrisalbon
    edited September 2, 2007
    Hezzah! I found the problem!

    A few days ago I had rebuilt my search index. Before that I had 30 indexed items, totally maybe 3000 words. But then I tried to index my whole collection (2000 entries) I had over 168,000 words. For the record, it actually froze 1/2 way through indexing it.

    After I indexed my collection the problem started (freeze when deleting). To test my theory I cleared my index right before I went to bed last night (it takes a while) and this morning I can delete items perfectly.
  • dstillman
    Chris: Assuming you're referring to the unresponsive script error (and not a Windows error), you should know that Firefox isn't really freezing—it's just a message that Firefox displays when a script is talking a long time. We usually disable it temprarily before long operations, but clicking Continue a few times would allow the operation to finish. You can also go to about:config in the address bar, find dom.max_chrome_script_run_time, and set it to 0 to disable the warning completely (or increase the timeout). Now, I'd be interested to know how long an uninterrupted delete operation does take for you with a full word index—it sounds like we need to speed up that operation.
  • chrisalbon
    edited September 2, 2007
    Hi Dan,

    It wasn't an unresponsive script error (I had already set the max_chrome_script_run_time to 0).

    Here is a detailed explanation:

    Open Firefox
    Open Zotero Window
    Select an Item
    Press Delete
    Confirm Deletion

    (nothing happens)

    After this, if I click anywhere in the firefox window the title of the firefox window instantly says ("Not Responding")

    After a few minutes a window pops up and say Firefox is not responding and do I want to close it.

    Now, after I cleared the search index Zotero worked perfectly.
  • mark
    edited June 1, 2008
    This topic has been dormant for a long time, but I have the exact same problem. However, I hope it is not the case that I need to give up fulltext indexing just to be able to delete items.

    Does this specifically have to do with fulltext indexing related database errors (which I know I have had before) or does it occur anytime when the database is sufficiently large?

    (Currently using IE7 to browse the forums because I'm waiting for Firefox to finish clearing the fulltext index...)

    (Edit, one hour later: Firefox is still unresponsive and taking up 95% of CPU time! It's getting very annoying -- why does it take such a long time?)
  • dstillman
    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/2361/

    Should be much faster in Zotero 1.5 for a variety of reasons. Closing this thread, since the other one has more technical details.
This discussion has been closed.