"Zotero experienced an error" in Word & Zotero 10.0.1

klaxonn · 2026-08-27T14:05:55+00:00

I am receiving the same error as described in the "Word for Windows: "Zotero experienced an error updating your document"" thread (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/132111/word-for-windows-zotero-experienced-an-error-updating-your-document#latest).

While the thread says to update to Zotero 9.0.5 to fix the issue, I am receiving the error on a fresh install of version 10.0.1. Zotero has never been installed on this particular computer before. Windows 11 is fully up-to-date.

Citation styles that are in-line seem work, but anything that uses a footnote fails. I am testing with a very simple library item with just a test title and test author name. The test is also being done on a new blank document.

Microsoft® Word for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2608 Build 16.0.20326.20072) 64-bit
Report ID: 2119422738

I also ran a couple tests with debugging on, where I have some successes with Chicago author-date and failure with Chicago shortened notes and bibliography:
Debug ID D197599670

adomasven · 2026-08-27T14:38:26+00:00

Do you run any security software on this machine? Is it your personal computer or managed by an institution? Could you create a new test Windows user account and see if it works there?

klaxonn · 2026-08-27T20:18:44+00:00

This particular machine is managed and has ThreatLocker on it, but I fully disabled it during testing and confirmed no part of Zotero was being blocked.

I did create a test user and had success there while logged into the same M365 account. No errors showed up on the brand-new test user.

A test on another user's computer that is a local workgroup user did have the same issue as my own computer's Entra ID login.

adomasven · 2026-08-28T05:38:45+00:00

The new user test shows you that something in your current user config, either in Word, Windows policies, or ThreatLocker are causing this. Particularly, Zotero writes a small file in your configured temp directory, and uses that file to insert rich text. If that is blocked by your configuration, you would see an error like what you have reported.