Crashes/freezes due to Better BibTeX

telemachos · 2026-02-26T01:34:56+00:00

Hi,

While annotating a PDF (actually, I was editing an annotation), Zotero displayed the spinning system cursor and had to be force quit. I have a sample report.

Just now, I quit Zotero, but it hung and appears to have been terminated by the system. I have a crash report.

Where should I send these?

poettli · 2026-02-26T01:55:16+00:00

Just now, I quit Zotero, but it hung and appears to have been terminated by the system. I have a crash report.

Is this on a Mac with BBT installed?

telemachos · 2026-02-26T04:28:32+00:00

Do you mean Better BibTeX? Yes. Is it the source of problems?

telemachos · 2026-02-26T04:29:47+00:00

Looks like it was just updated.

telemachos · 2026-02-27T19:06:58+00:00

Is this only required for LaTeX exports?

dstillman · 2026-02-27T19:07:27+00:00

BBT? If you don't know why you have a plugin installed, you shouldn't have it installed.

gabriel.parriaux · 2026-03-04T11:50:10+00:00

I have the same problem that Telemachos describes here: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/130020/zotero-8-0-3-hangs-every-time-upon-quit/p1, but the discussion is closed, so I post it here.

I also use BBT and I know why I use it: for all the LaTeX related stuff…

How can we solve it? Is it in the hands of BBT developers to solve it?
Gabriel

poettli · 2026-03-04T12:14:25+00:00

Simply update the plugin.

Type-IIx · 2026-03-04T17:53:44+00:00

I came here to report Zotero with Better Bibtex 8.0.33 on OS X, still the latest update available it seems through Zotero Plugins Manager, has been killing my system performance and crashing all my Zotero components even the Word plugin.

I checked the Better Bibtex git and there's a release from 90 minutes ago that can be found here:
https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/releases/tag/v9.0.1

Happy citing!

Type-IIx · 2026-03-04T18:31:00+00:00

FYI, some of us are experiencing issues updating the plugin
https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/discussions/3457

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-04T20:33:13+00:00

The non-upgrade of 8.0.33 reproduces for me, but I have no idea why. The manifest of 8.0.33 points to https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/releases/download/release/updates.json, that points to https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/releases/download/v9.0.1/zotero-better-bibtex-9.0.1.xpi, and that downloads just fine.

dstillman · 2026-03-04T20:37:40+00:00

On what Zotero version?

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-04T20:44:14+00:00

Zotero 8.0.3 on MacOS

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-04T20:49:53+00:00

Same on Linux

dstillman · 2026-03-04T20:51:17+00:00

I think it's just the same BBT bug that's preventing proper shutdown. Zotero can't shut down the plugin, so it can't update it.

Maybe we need to block all BBT versions <9.0?

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-04T21:07:25+00:00

Ah, well that is decidedly not great. Yeah, pre 9 can go. I'll remove the 8 line releases to be sure. But how would people get anything from the 8 line right now? The updates.json points to the latest.

dstillman · 2026-03-05T03:01:34+00:00

They wouldn't be getting anything from the 8 line at this point. People are presumably just stuck on 8 versions because of this issue.

dstillman · 2026-03-05T06:13:16+00:00

We've blocked BBT <9 in the latest beta, and we'll do the same in 8.0.4 soon.

Type-IIx · 2026-03-06T00:08:12+00:00

I managed to update to BBT 9.0.1 by exporting the BBT config from Zotero, uninstalling the BBT 8.0.33 plugin, and then installing it from the xpi, and reloading my config. It wasn't completely smooth, an error came up when I repeated the process because it didn't show up in the Plugins Manager, saying BBT was already running.

Now my system is humming along _except_ for the stubborn need to Force Quit Zotero when I quit.

My past few days were spent in part submitting bug reports on GitHub for Obsidian plugins and this so it was a bit of a PITA but I'm happy now that my system is operational and am grateful to the devs for their reponsive work or I'd be stuck.

I don't want to buy a new computer until the MBP M5 Max release, or possibly the Mac Mini M5 Pro, supposedly coming this spring. Thanks for reading :)

dstillman · 2026-03-06T00:48:31+00:00

@Type-IIx: Wait, you're saying even with BBT 9.0.1 it's still freezing on quit?

Type-IIx · 2026-03-06T00:52:39+00:00

@dstillman: Unfortunately yes. I tried to send a debug log but since it happens after quitting it doesn't seem to produce any information about it in the report I think

dstillman · 2026-03-06T00:57:13+00:00

@emilianoeheyns, are you aware of this?

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-06T07:52:43+00:00

No, I was not aware of this. Last report by Type-IIx on github was was that their problem was upgrading from 8.33 and that that had been resolved for them.

I managed to update to BBT 9.0.1 by exporting the BBT config from Zotero

You can do this for safekeeping but for this case it isn't required. BBT configuration is wholly separate from whether it is installed.

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-06T07:54:20+00:00

They wouldn't be getting anything from the 8 line at this point. People are presumably just stuck on 8 versions because of this issue.

Ah and banning <9 would prevent BBT from even starting, hence allowing the upgrade to succeed?

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-06T10:08:44+00:00

@Type-IIx can you open a new issue on this?

One of my tests has 24k3 items and shuts down Zotero, and BBT shutdown appears to finish without problems:

zotero(3)(+0000000): {better-bibtex:} better bibtex shutdown finished
zotero(3)(+0000000): Better BibTeX bootstrap: {better-bibtex} bootstrap: shutdown completed
zotero(3)(+0000001): Better BibTeX bootstrap: {better-bibtex} bootstrap: bootstrap: shutdown: done
zotero(3)(+0000000): MenuAPI: Registrations for plugin better-bibtex@iris-advies.com are unregistered due to shutdown
zotero(3)(+0000000): ItemTreeColumnManager: Registrations for plugin better-bibtex@iris-advies.com are unregistered due to shutdown
zotero(3)(+0000000): Preference panes registered by plugin better-bibtex@iris-advies.com unregistered due to shutdown
zotero(3)(+0000000): LibreOfficePlugin: Registering shutdown listener

dstillman · 2026-03-06T14:12:11+00:00

Ah and banning <9 would prevent BBT from even starting, hence allowing the upgrade to succeed?

Yes.

Please let us know if there end up being later versions we should block as well.

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-06T14:15:37+00:00

Will do.

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-06T14:17:00+00:00

@Type-IIx I will need you to open an issue on github. I cannot reproduce this.

Type-IIx · 2026-03-07T00:07:09+00:00

My mind is blown, I just submitted two Report IDs – one from Troubleshooting Mode one not – while submitting the issue to https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues but can no longer reproduce it myself! The problem seems to have disappeared just after cycling through Troubleshooting Mode?

---
From the (unsubmitted) issue:

First, after ⌥+click-launching Zotero.app and running 8.0.3 in **Troubleshooting Mode**, I submitted Bug Report ID `424757321`

In Normal Mode:
Report ID: `864152628`
---

There are some errors for your review in either mode. See what you can make of it?

dstillman · 2026-03-07T00:29:36+00:00

You shouldn't be submitting anything to the Zotero issue tracker. Emiliano is the BBT developer, and he's saying that, if you're experiencing an issue with BBT, you need to report it to him on the BBT issue tracker on GitHub.

I'd guess that you simply hadn't actually updated BBT because the previous version couldn't be shut down properly, so it couldn't be updated. Once you managed to get into Troubleshooting Mode, the plugin would've been updated to a v9 version that doesn't have these problems.

We'll be releasing Zotero 8.0.4 shortly that blocks versions of BBT before v9.

dstillman · 2026-03-07T03:07:17+00:00

Zotero 8.0.4 is out now, which will disable BBT versions before v9 and allow it to upgrade properly. If you continue to have problems, report them to the BBT developer on GitHub.