-ZoteroDebugText does not work on Windows

[Emiliano Heyns]

When running "C:\Program Files (x86)\Zotero\zotero.exe" -ZoteroDebugText, no output appears on the console. Running "C:\Program Files (x86)\Zotero\zotero.exe" -ZoteroDebug does work, but I need the console output to diagnose a crash.

[Dan Stillman]

On 9/25/24 6:16 AM, Emiliano Heyns wrote:

When running "C:\Program Files (x86)\Zotero\zotero.exe" -ZoteroDebugText, no output appears on the console. Running "C:\Program Files (x86)\Zotero\zotero.exe" -ZoteroDebug does work, but I need the console output to diagnose a crash.

From the documentation: "It may be necessary to add -console as well." But that would close when Zotero closes, so you wouldn't be able to debug a crash that way.

Some Windows terminals might work directly with -ZoteroDebugText, but I don't think I've seen that working in years. If you find a way, let us know. But there's a reason we say "Due to limitations of the available console windows on Windows, you may have a better experience using -ZoteroDebug instead to use Zotero's internal debug output window" (and generally suggest not trying to develop on Windows).

[Emiliano Heyns]

I hadn't expected there to be no output at all.

I've extended zotero-debug-log to do live log capture. It won't catch the crash itself of course, but it catches enough of the lead-up to be useful. Best I could do for Windows log capture.

I wouldn't dream of developing on Windows, but some bugs seem platform-bound and I need a way to diagnose these things. Popping open the console made Zotero absolutely intolerably show -- a test that was supposed to take a few minutes grew to an ETA of 4 hours before I killed it.