Extension for Safari Missing

sklein3 · 2025-05-29T11:22:59+00:00

The Browser Connector has disappeared from Safari for me.

I am on:
Zotero: 7.0.15
Sequoia 15.5
Safari Version 18.5 (20621.2.5.11.8)

Followed these instructions:
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/safari_compatibility

but the extension does not appear:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u8531228/6fse12iqeu6tg2xi06so.jpg

As suggested by this:
https://claremont.libanswers.com/faq/383173
I am not seeing a permissions prompt.

Any ideas?

sgv09 · 2025-06-02T04:22:32+00:00

I’m experiencing the same issue. I suspect it might be related to the recent operating system update. :(

dstillman · 2025-06-02T04:24:03+00:00

There's no general issue with macOS 15.5. Delete Zotero from Applications, restart your computer, redownload Zotero, and start the app once. Then check Safari again.

sklein3 · 2025-06-02T13:21:26+00:00

The suggestion does NOT appear to have worked.

dstillman · 2025-06-02T13:41:20+00:00

Open Terminal via Spotlight, paste this in, and press Return:

pluginkit -mAv | grep Zotero

What's the output?

sklein3 · 2025-06-02T14:00:37+00:00

org.zotero.SafariExtensionApp.SafariExtension(5.0.148) 9C13240C-1F9A-49F8-9540-86D771ED16E4 2025-06-02 13:20:01 +0000 /Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/PlugIns/ZoteroSafariExtension.appex

dstillman · 2025-06-02T14:08:46+00:00

That looks correct.

You can try running the Zotero 7.1 beta to see if that makes a difference.

dstillman · 2025-06-02T14:10:53+00:00

Fundamentally, though, the Safari extension system is just really buggy and unstable, so there's not a lot we can do here — again, this isn't any sort of general problem on 15.5. It's possible to scan for registration errors in the Console app when the app is first installed and started, but that gets pretty complicated.

If you're not able to get it to appear, you should switch to a different browser with a more reliable extension mechanism or wait for another macOS update to fix it. Sorry we don't have a better answer for you.

sklein3 · 2025-06-02T14:32:31+00:00

I agree, but the faculty I support prefer Safari and I needed to demonstrate on my computer.

Nevertheless, after reinstalling a second time, I went to Safari=>Settings=>Extensions and was able to turn it on by clicking the checkbox.

Thanks for the assist. Appreciated.

shinkley · 2025-06-24T16:57:07+00:00

This has happened to me several times - it's obviously some bug / incompatibility with Safari as above poster said. I'm resigned to just expecting it to disappear every so often, and until I feel like reinstalling Zotero I just use Chrome.

wsd1 · 2025-06-25T15:09:34+00:00

I would like to briefly confirm that I have also noticed the disappearance of the Zotero extension in Safari. The extension was previously activated for me, but only in a second Safari profile, which I use explicitly for working with Zotero.

So far I have not been able to reproduce the reappearance of the extension.

dstillman · 2025-06-25T15:15:04+00:00

There's nothing to confirm. It's a years-old Safari bug — that's why we have a troubleshooting section about it. It's annoying, but in almost all cases it's trivial to fix by deleting/redownloading the app or zipping/deleting/unzipping it and starting it once. If you don't want to deal with this periodically, use a browser with a more reliable extension framework.