Problem with entering Google Scholar after losing access to university account

hgray
My access to academic literature through one university was discontinued, and I wanted to switch my proxy access to my current university. However, I couldn't get into Google Scholar through Firefox. I had thought the problem was the university's Firefox plug-in (e.g., LibX) or perhaps Scholar preferences.

No -- the problem was Zotero. After talking to several tech folks, finally one person advised that I go to Preferences-Proxies and delete the discontinued university, which Zotero had automatically "remembered" as a proxy resource.

I suggest Zotero examine it's ability to "remember" proxy resources and inability to un-remember that resource. Otherwise, other ordinary users will have trouble dealing with this kind of problem.

Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    What would you expect Zotero to do? The remembering proxy feature is super-convenient for most of us - and it's easy to turn off. So what's the alternative that you're suggesting more specifically.
  • hgray
    Yes, I certainly found it very convenient myself, while it worked.

    I suppose the info (and a word of caution) might be added to the documentation. I don't see a way to find this issue through the documentation TOC. (One can search for an explanation of proxies, but it doesn't mention this issue.)

    Is there a way for zotero to detect when a proxy log-in is rejected? Perhaps that could trigger a dis-remembering.

    I'm an end-user, not a programmer. Keep in mind that I encountered this problem through ordinary searches via google, not through any explicit use of zotero.
  • dstillman
    edited February 5, 2010
    Is there a way for zotero to detect when a proxy log-in is rejected?
    Well, what happened exactly? Do you just mean that it took you to your old proxy login page when you tried to access Google Scholar, and you no longer had a login? That's not really a possible trigger—what if someone mistypes their password?
  • dstillman
    The only change I can think of in Zotero itself would be some sort of indication when Zotero is proxying you (e.g., an auto-hiding pop-up in the bottom right like the save pop-up), but that could get annoying pretty quickly.
  • adamsmith
    no, please no pop-up. I (and I suspect many of us) use this feature every day and really don't want a pop-up.
    Improving the documentation is the first and easiest step, I'll try to tackle that on the weekend.
    hgray - as for specific ideas - I wasn't asking you to write the code, but before we can ask Dan or someone else to do that, there needs to be a conceptual solution - i.e. how things should look.
  • hgray
    I'm mostly just trying to share my experience as an ordinary user. I've got various plug-ins etc, I may not use or remember them all and don't know how they really work. It had been along time since I had set up zotero. So when I found myself blocked from using Google Scholar, I tried to look up Scholar settings and called university tech support. I hadn't even thought of zotero as the issue. Anyway...

    You're right that a regular pop-up would be terrible.
    Dan is right that you wouldn't want a single mistyped password to trigger something. But -- if the proxy fails to get through on multiple attempts -- could zotero then trigger a pop-up (or simply remind us to edit the zotero proxy preferences)?
  • adamsmith
    your feedback is certainly valued - we just have to translate this into a feasible solution. Multiple password failures might not be the best way to do that - if I know I don't have Univ. access any more it seems unlikely that I would just keep trying...

    Maybe go back to the idea of some sort of auto-hiding pop-up warning like Dan suggest above - I read this too quickly and thought it was going to be a "real" pop-up that would need to be OKd. But something like the save pop-up might actually be nice.
  • dstillman
    Yes, I certainly wasn't suggesting anything that would require user intervention. And even an auto-hiding pop-up could be distracting. But given that this feature is rather subtle and has the potential to confuse users, and it's altering the standard browsing experience even when it's working properly, a one-second pop-up might be worth trying out.
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