Zotero deletes my whole document

Gavin Koh
Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Word:Mac 2011, Zotero 2.0.9

I can't replicate the problem consistently, but sometimes when I add a citation, Word and Firefox are both busy for about 5 minutes and then suddenly Zotero starts deleting my entire document, starting from the insertion point and then scrolling round to the beginning until the whole document is deleted.
Command + Z doesn't help! I have to go back to a previously saved version.
  • Gavin Koh
    After inserting the citation, Word seizes up and a little window keeps flashing (for just a millisecond each time):
    "Word is converting tmp8cXd.rtf
    Press Command + , to Cancel."

    I can stop Zotero from wiping the document by pressing Command + ,
    I then get the error message:

    "Zotero experienced an error updating your document.

    COMMAND: app(u'Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft Word.app').active_document.fields[317].result_range.content.set('')"

    By the way…why does Zotero use "Command + ,"? This is also the default keyboard shortcut for application preferences.
  • Gavin Koh
    Right. More to report.
    Zotero is not actually deleting my document. It is writing over every character in the document with "[space] [space] [space]..." or "***..." or "[CR] [CR] [CR]..." or some other random character.
  • Simon
    Can you make a copy of the document, attempt to reproduce this, let Zotero finish running, and then email the file to support@zot...org? We've never heard of this happening before.

    For what it's worth, the Cancel keyboard shortcut is Microsoft's doing. Not sure why it's Cmd+, instead of Cmd+.
  • staceyscott
    I had the same thing happen to me. Any resolution of this?
  • adamsmith
    when you say "same thing" - do you actually get the exact same error messages and symptoms, or just broadly speaking "Zotero deletes my whole document"? If the latter, start a new thread, provide as much detail as possible.
    If you're really seeing exactly the same issue, send the document to the e-mail as directed by Simon above, referencing this thread.
  • Simon
    I think the original issue here was this, which is actually a bug in Word that can also be triggered without Zotero. If you're experiencing it, upgrade to the latest version of Word 2011, which might be fixed.
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