Right click doesn't work

rutyggi · 2026-03-07T16:28:54+00:00

All of a sudden, right-clicking on an item stops working.

It should show the menu used with various options (for instance, the one to copy the citation to the clipboard).

I have no idea how to reproduce it because it happens after some time I use the software.

How can I debug it?

It started to happen with Zotero 8. It never happened with previous versions.

northword · 2026-03-07T16:45:55+00:00

I suspect there is an error in the localisation configuration of a plugin's menu, for example, the FTL message is missing.

dstillman · 2026-03-07T18:46:57+00:00

@rutyggi: This is caused by Better BibTeX. Report it to the BBT developer on GitHub.

synderlic · 2026-03-08T00:46:11+00:00

This has been happening to me too, but I don't use a BBT plugin.

synderlic · 2026-03-08T00:58:11+00:00

I see the earlier post now; I'll try to vet the plugins.

northword · 2026-03-08T09:19:42+00:00

I believe I can now reproduce this issue. I tested both the linter and translate plugins; both have menus registered using Zotero.MenuManager.

Steps to Reproduce:

Open Zotero and install either the linter or translate plugin.

Right-click on any item to open the context menu -> The menu opens normally.

Disable the plugin installed in step 1.

Try opening the context menu again -> The menu fails to open, and the console logs: Uncaught (in promise) undefined.

Re-enable the plugin and try opening the menu again -> The menu opens normally.

Potential Cause:

The menu requires a direct l10nID, which necessitates developers to inject FTL files into the mainWindow. Following best practices, plugin developers clean up their resources when the plugin is disabled. The call chain is as follows:

hook shutdown -> onShutdown -> onMainWindowUnload -> remove ftl

Reference: hooks.ts (Lines 109-112)

In step 3, the plugin clears its FTL resources. Consequently, when the menu is opened again, it likely triggers an l10n.translateXX error that isn't properly caught.

Suggested Improvement:

I believe this should be addressed on the Zotero side. Regardless of a plugin's state, its functionality should not prevent the Zotero context menu from appearing. We could perhaps handle l10n errors by suppressing them and injecting placeholder text for the affected menu items, such as [missing text for ${ftl-key}].

But if this is indeed a plugin-side issue, please let me know.

---

Not sure if this should go to the dev mailing list, but it does seem relevant to this issue.

CC @dstillman , @hsiangyu_wong

emilianoeheyns · 2026-03-08T10:05:42+00:00

If a missing l10nID causes the menu to not show, that would explain one problem I have been having in BBT, as I have menu entries without an l10nID. But in that case the problem is intermittent, since there are cases where having no l10nID does work for me, and others where at least the non-BBT part of the menu works as expected.I have a case out on zotero-dev about this issue or something closely related to this.