'Word cannot communicate with Zotero' (MAC)

Sophia3
I keep getting this message - that Word and Firefox are not communicating. I have uninstalled, reinstalled every single component. I have no firewall or zone alarm set up, it just DOES NOT WORK, no matter WHAT I do. I have tried to downgrade, uprage, everything. How do I stop this communication error?????
  • Simon
    Did you go through this procedure? Assuming the Zotero components are up to date, what versions of Word and Firefox do you have?
  • Sophia3
    Hi Simon,

    Yep, I've had a look at that - I don't use ZoneAlarm and I only have the one Firefox profile. I have once again uninstalled and reinstalled all components (firefox 4, zotero 2.1, python ext, macword plugin) as well as run a software update and NOTHING works. I went back to an old thread on the same issue which advised to run install.apple script from application support/firefox/extensions/macwordintergration/install - I looked in here and the only file is 'zotero.dot'.

    Any ideas at all??
  • Sophia3
    I REALLY really need help with this - my journal article is due in a couple of days - can anyone offer any help?
  • heidib
    I couldn't get Word and Zotero talking on the new version of Firefox on my Mac, so I downgraded to version 3.6.17 of Firefox and now it seems to be working. Hope that helps.
    Heidi
  • ajlyon
    From http://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_installation_for_zotero_2.1 :
    The latest version of the Mac Word plugin for Zotero 2.1 is 3.1.2 (compatible with Word 2004, 2008, and 2011 and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or later). Firefox 4 compatibility requires 10.6 Snow Leopard, so users of 10.4 or 10.5 will need to upgrade to 10.6 or use Firefox 3.6.
  • Sophia3
    Heidib - did you have to also downgrade Zotero? I have Mac OS X 10.6, and when I downgraded to firefox 3.6 with Zotero 2.1 as suggested, it still doesn't communicate ...
  • Sophia3
    I've tried downgrading, then upgrading, disabling then enabling all virus/firewall etc. NOTHING works. I'm going to have stop using Zotero, which makes me very sad but I don't have any option. No idea how I'm going to complete this dissertation now.
  • Simon
    What version of Word do you have installed?
  • adamsmith
    Sophia - your initial post is one day old and you're not exactly providing a lot of details for people to work with, so you'll need to calm down, have a little patience and let people try to troubleshoot this with you without freaking out - provide as much detail as you can, including your exact set-up: Which OS, FF, Word, plugin version, python ext. version. Be specific about what exactly you do/did to troubleshoot - "everything" isn't very informative - for example I'm not clear from what you've written so far if you've ever used the "re-install word component" button in the preferences of the FF add-on.
    Also, it might be a good idea to have someone else take a look at your computer - often when we get frustrated we overlook the most obvious things.
  • Sophia3
    Hehe, sorry! Yes I am getting really frustrated as I'm working on a thing which is due in four days time - apologies if I sound a little over the top (technology rage is the worst).

    So, my computer came installed with MAC OSX 10.6 - I updated it yesterday to make sure its all up to date. I'm now using Firefox 4 (the problem seemed to start when I installed it), with Zotero 2.1.6, MacWord Integration 3.1.2 and Python Ext 2.6.2.

    I recently reinstalled all components - when I head to the Cite panel in Extensions/Zotero/Preferences it offers me to the option to 'Reinstall Word Add-in' rather than 'Reinstall Word component', not sure if this is a problem. When I do reinstall, it says its been successful but when I restart FF and Word the same communication error still occurs.

    I've only got the one FF profile, so I don't think that the startup of FF is a problem.

    I tried to downgrade to FF 3.6 to see if it made any difference, since the problem started when I upgraded to FF 4, but that made no difference either, so I've re-upgraded to FF 4.

    At my uni computer lab I installed everything from scratch (the newest versions of each component - FF 4, Zotero 2.1, MacWord Intergration 3.1.2 and PythonExt 2.6.2) and on that computer everything worked fine. So it seems to be a problem with my computer, but I can't work out precisely what's going wrong - the Zotero database itself in FF is working just fine, all my references are intact.

    Any help appreciated - apologies for seeming a bit hysterical, I'll take a deep breath now :)
  • Sophia3
    Oh - its Microsoft Office and Word 2008

    thanks
  • adamsmith
    great, that should help - Simon is going to take it from here.
  • Simon
    edited May 25, 2011
    Can you open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal and type the following

    ls -lad /Users/Shared/.zoteroIntegrationPipe*
    and copy and paste the output here?
  • Sophia3
    This was the output:


    ls: /Users/Shared/.zoteroIntegrationPipe*: Permission denied
    sophia-barness-imac:~ Sophia$
  • Simon
    Repair your disk permissions. The article says Mac OS X 10.4, but the instructions are the same for Mac OS X 10.6.
  • Sophia3
    I reinstalled all the components and tried again, but the message was:

    Permission denied
    -bash: ls:: command not found
    sophia-barness-imac:~ Sophia$ sophia-barness-imac:~ Sophia$
    -bash: sophia-barness-imac:~: command not found
    sophia-barness-imac:~ Sophia$
    sophia-barness-imac:~ Sophia$
  • Sophia3
    Oops, sorry, only just noticed your post - will try that and report back
  • Sophia3
    Ok so I repaired the disk permissions on my hard drive and tried the terminal command again, now the output is:


    ls: /Users/Shared/.zoteroIntegrationPipe*: No such file or directory
    sophia-barness-imac:~ Sophia$
  • Simon
    Restart Firefox.
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