ID 974589316 Zotero 9 freezes when writing notes longer than 2–3 lines

elenafersan
edited May 20, 2026
At the moment, when I open a PDF to read and annotate it (whether it’s 390 pages or 5 pages), whenever I highlight a paragraph and try to add a comment, or when I add a sticky note and write on it, the programme freezes when I type more than 2–3 lines of text. The screen turns grey and the message appears: ‘Zotero is not responding’. It only gives me two options: close the programme or wait for it to respond (it never actually responds).

I’m running Windows 11, Zotero is updated to the latest version, and I have no plugins installed. I’m not syncing automatically either, and my data directory is in order and stored locally. I’ve also checked my PC’s CPU and memory, and everything is fine.

I’m copying and pasting the report generated before the problem occurs (once it happens, it freezes and it’s impossible to generate it):

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[error report removed — Report ID is sufficient — D.S.]
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Can you provide a Debug ID (different from a Report ID) for reproducing this?
  • elenafersan
    I can’t generate a Debug ID because once Zotero freezes, it doesn’t recover and I’m forced to close it. I was able to work around the issue temporarily by reverting to Zotero 7. I then tried switching back to Zotero 9, but the problem still persists.
  • octavian_datcu
    I have the same issue. Comments are unusable. Seems to be a problem with how many lines of writing you have, but I'm not sure. Here's a short video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RSQjQIUtKNW8qO3lQBIgY14ki4fKgR6X/view?usp=sharing
  • elenafersan
    Since I didn't receive a response, I went back to Zotero 7. About a month later, I reinstalled Zotero 9, and the problem seems to have resolved itself automatically
  • octavian_datcu
    I'm really confused. I reinstalled Zotero 9 and the issue is still there. Zotero completely crashes. Not really sure what that Zotero 7 install does if you say it solved the problem. Really confused.
  • Lenincito
    Solved the problem!

    I had the same freeze reported in this and similar threads: Zotero would hang and become "Not Responding" when typing a comment on a highlight, once it got past 2-3 lines. I tried several of the things already mentioned in this forum (Troubleshooting Mode, disabling plugins, etc.), but none of that fixed it.

    What finally worked for me: right-clicking inside the text box where you type the comment/annotation, and disabling spellcheck from that menu. After that, it stopped freezing completely.

    Context that might matter: I often type mixing Spanish and English, so this may be related to the spellchecker struggling with non-English or mixed-language text in real time. Hope this helps someone else stuck on this.

    I hope this helps!
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