Zotero freezes up

charles
I am using Zotero on a library site that is perhaps not in compliance. When I click on the book symbol to download a book reference the little loading window freezes, remains blank and Zotero doesn't respond anymore. I then have to quit Firefox. I can usually manage to download one reference before this happens but it is so bad that I canot use Zotero anymore.
version used 1.0.orc3

Thanks
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    What's a sample URL at which this happens?
  • charles
    http://www.americanlibraryinparis.org/

    It appears to happen at random. Symbol of book appears however.

    It happened here (search for):

    Tales of the New Babylon : Paris 1869-1875 / Rupert Christiansen.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Without a way to consistently reproduce it, the best I could suggest would be to try running Zotero with debug logging enabled.

    First, go to about:config in the address bar, type zotero.debug in the Filter box, and double-click extensions.zotero.debug.log to make sure the debug pref is set to "true".

    Then close Firefox and open Terminal (Applications->Utilities->Terminal) and start Firefox via the command line by typing the following line:

    /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox &

    Hit Enter and Firefox should start, with debug output appearing in the Terminal.

    Then, try to get the problem to happen again, and if it does, do a Select All of the text in the Terminal and e-mail it to support@zot....org.
  • charles
    I tried twice to get Terminal to record "debug output" but nothing futher appears on the Terminal screen after the start-up of Firefox. Will keep trying.

    I notice that Zotero freezes up consistently on the second attempt to record book references. it works the first time but then freezes (a blank blue window) the second time.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Make sure extensions.zotero.debug.log displays "true" over on the right in about:config.

    I'm able to record book references from that site multiple times without a problem, I'm afraid.
  • charles
    Yes. Filter line for zotero.debug.log is displaying "true." I have several windows open in Firefox, besides the library site.

    What do you suggest? uninstall and reinstall Zotero? Firefox?
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    And you're closing all Firefox windows completely before starting via the command line? You might try restarting OS X and starting Firefox from the command line when it comes back up.

    I'm afraid I don't really have anything else to suggest. If the debug pref is on and Firefox is completely closed and Zotero is installed and working, you should see Zotero-related output start to fly by in the Terminal as soon as you hit Enter in the Terminal and Firefox starts loading.
  • charles
    I tried to reboot but no success as far as debug pref. Perhps the "true" is blinking back to "false"?

    I uninstalled the Zotero Word program that allowed me to generate a bibliographic entry, which stop working after I installed the new version of Zotero. It was sending error messages.

    I notice that the Zotero program still freezes but when I reload the page with the reference Zotero will then accept to download the information.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    You can download the new version of the Word plugin to restore that functionality.

    Do you mean that Firefox just freezes momentarily when saving a reference and then resumes after a while? If so, it may just be the fulltext indexer scanning the page, which we could offer a way to disable if necessary.

    But, that's where debug output would help... Try the command line above 1) without the ampersand and/or 2) using firefox-bin instead of firefox. Maybe one of those will help (though they shouldn't).

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