I typically have to wait 15-20 seconds for Zotero to add or delete an entry.

Then, clearly, your experience differs from most users of Zotero, because Zotero wouldn't have very many users if that were the case for everyone. (In general, it's more helpful to just focus on debugging an issue you're experiencing rather than assuming that it's something that the developers have ignored and the entire userbase has somehow learned to cope with.)

There are numerous other posts complaining of the same problem. Here are just a few:

Actually, many of the issues in those threads have nothing to do with yours, or with each other. (The first one is about a Zotero plugin that we didn't write. A couple are about opening the Zotero pane after a Firefox restart, and we've explained design decisions there. The fourth one is about the Word plugin and explains that Microsoft hasn't given us access to the interfaces we need to make the plugin as fast as EndNote's.)

We're always trying to speed up Zotero, and we hope to make significant performance improvements in future versions, but there can be completely different and unrelated reasons for performance issues in separate components. And beyond that, different people have different experiences based on the particularities of their databases, systems, and usage patterns.

It is frustrating that the developers will not engage the community in a frank discussion of the speed issue.

Actually, as those threads show, we've responded in some depth on quite a few performance issues, but they mostly don't have anything to do with one another. So there's no single "speed issue" to discuss.

But if you'd like us to look into problems you're experiencing personally, we'd be happy to help.

So:

1) What are your full-text indexing stats in the Search pane of the Zotero prefs?

2) Is there a speed difference for adding items between the tag selector in the bottom left being open or closed?

3) Provide a Debug ID for adding an item, and another (after clearing the output) for deleting.

Hi,
unfortunately I have the same problem. It now takes me about 20-30 seconds to add an entry.
Might it have something to do with the size of our libraries? My library now contains about 1.5 GB of pdf-files (around 900), and the zotero.sqlite file is 61 MB. And if I understand the programm right, this is the index and has to be rewritten everytime I add a new file.
Nevertheless, I still love the programm and keep advertizing it to everyone I meet since I just successfully finished my PhD thesis with Zotero without any major problems and it has saved me soooo much time, so thanks to evereyone who made this possible.

Here is the debug ID: D110973561.

Thanks.

Dan-

Ok - that seems to work. To test, I added three or four references with and without indexing. The import time drops from ~20 seconds to ~2 seconds. Is the underlying problem the full text index size (~345,000)? I have several large PDFs in the library.

It's great to hear about the new SQLite full text indexing. For now, can I just disable full text indexing and manually rebuild the index every week or so? (It might be useful to include a caveat about speed repercussions on the indexing page until the new indexing is incorporated. I searched the forums several times but somehow missed this.)

Thanks very much. I had been dealing with this the last couple years and had tried installing Zotero on several computers, disabling other extensions and so forth. Frustratingly, it kept reappearing.

Zotero is a great piece of software. I'll keep singing its praises.

Dan,

I have similar experiences. When it works as intended Zotero is easily the best reference manager I've used. I've found it slow on two kinds of occasions. When I start Zotero the dialogue box offering to stop the script or continue it appears many times. I can send you a debug file if you want to give me an address to send it to but it's rather big to paste here. Then, once Zotero is started, when I try to add an item to the data-base the GUI appears to hang although the debug konsole shows lots of activity taking place behind it. I can send this debug file too but in brief it contains hundreds of lines like this:

[unrelated output removed — D.S.]

The start-up delay is only once per session but the add-new-record delay makes a big difference to the usability of Zotero.

I too am having a slowness issue. I tried the fix posted above about setting search numbers to 0, but it's still having issues
this is particular when, for example, I do a search, find the reference i want, and then drag it into a folder. at that point I get a long hangup - well, long or indefinite.

any suggestions? or do I need to start a debug number?

Foellmer: You'll need to be more specific about how exactly it is "slow". Plenty of people have databases with 9,000 items.

Disable auto-sync in the Sync pane of the Zotero preferences to make sure you're not just seeing repeated failed syncs (though "syncing does not work" is not a valid bug report).

If you're referring to the first opening of the Zotero pane after restarting Firefox, that will be slow with large libraries, and the reasons for that have been covered extensively in other threads. In short: Zotero is optimized for the common usage pattern where at least one Firefox window is left open. (For example, on Macs, applications are almost never fully closed.) Subsequent openings of the Zotero pane should be instantaneous.

But opening the Zotero pane will also trigger an auto-sync. Have you disabled auto-sync in the Sync pane of the Zotero preferences to make sure the slowness you're experiencing isn't related to syncing? If it is, start a new thread.

Switching between collections within Zotero should not be slow unless you have either a massive library (are you including child items in your item count?) or a slow computer. But as stated above, we'd need a Debug ID for a particular operation (clearing output immediately before) to debug it.

I just tried to insert a citation into a doc in Libre Office

Start new threads for unrelated issues.

The Debug ID is D2116443313 for using the search (I looked up an author). Took about 10 secs and lead to a temporary freeze.

The 9000 items count refers to articles/book chapters and hence does not include child items.

OK, and what's your full item count, then?

Dan, closing the tag selector did it: switching between collections is quick now.

My full item count is about 18000 (I don't now whether the exact number can be displayed).

I was having similar problems with slooooow adds to the library and slow searches. It seemed much worse when I moved to firefox 4.

Anyway I cleared the index and rebuilt it to include fewer pdf pages (15 instead of the default 100). It seems dramatically improved.

Is it possible for the index to become corrupted?

This time I cleared the index before I rebuilt it, which took a while but worked. Last time I was problem-solving re: slow searches but I couldn't get the index to rebuild. I ended up clicking the 'reindex item' button on a bunch of the individual files by hand, which helped. When I initialized a full rebuild, Firefox would go off on its own and the process just wouldn't finish. I left it overnight a couple of times to no avail.

What's the latest report on whether an improved indexing subsystem will come out soon?

Your missing Dan's point. Dan was answering a specific point, in which a user experienced delays that just are not part of a regular user experience - many people have databases with a couple of thousand items and long delays creating or deleting items just aren't general issues and it doesn't make sense to write as if these are general Zotero issues - instead.

As for your specific points - the first two are being worked on - I'd recommend completely ignoring the quick search fields in both Zotero and Ooo plugin until then - I assume you usually know the author or title of the reference you want to cite, so you can just sort by that column and type the first couple of letters.

Your third point is too unspecific to be useful - attaching files can take a little longer because of indexing, but changing field content really shouldn't, if you can provide steps to reproduce that reliably that would be helpful.

what exactly are you doing that results in the delay?

@adam - that delay resulted from editing either the title or the author of the item.

@Dan I'll try that and revert - many thanks.