Zotero 7 jsdebugger not working in Linux

[Diego de la Hera]

Hi all!

I'm trying to use the jsdebugger flag to open the debugging toolbox:

zotero -jsdebugger

However, this isn't working in my Linux environment: the Browser Toolbox window does not open.

It seems to be working for a colleague of mine who uses Windows.

I'm using Zotero-7.0.0-beta.101+220bb4383_linux-x86_64 (tried with Zotero-7.0.0-beta.92+d5bb667fb_linux-x86_64 and also not working).

I tried launching my downloaded version of Firefox 115.9.1esr with the -jsdebugger flag and it does open the Browser Toolbox.

So I wonder whether it's a problem with the xulrunner packaged in the Linux version of Zotero 7.

I tried building Zotero 7 from source, but the `build_and_run` helper is calling the `fetch_xulrunner` script, which in turn is failing with an "Unescaped left brace in regex is illegal here in regex" error.

Any clues? Is anyone being able to use the `-jsdebugger` flag with Zotero 7 in Linux?

Thank you!

Diego

[Dan Stillman]

On 7/18/24 10:28 AM, Diego de la Hera wrote:

I'm trying to use the jsdebugger flag to open the debugging toolbox:

zotero -jsdebugger

However, this isn't working in my Linux environment: the Browser Toolbox window does not open.

The flag is -debugger, and then you connect from Firefox 115 ESR:

https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/zotero_7_for_developers#using_the_firefox_developer_tools

Dedicated documentation page here:

https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/client_coding/developer_tools

We have an open PR to open the Developer Toolbox from within Zotero itself, but that's not available yet.

I tried building Zotero 7 from source, but the `build_and_run` helper is calling the `fetch_xulrunner` script, which in turn is failing with an "Unescaped left brace in regex is illegal here in regex" error.

Can you start a new thread for this and say what distro/version you're on?

[Diego de la Hera]

Hi, Dan. Thanks for your reply.

We were aware of the -debugger option, which we were using until before Zotero 7. But my colleague who uses Windows says he downloaded the latest Windows 64-bit zip beta build from https://www.zotero.org/support/beta_builds and that he runs it with zotero.exe -jsdebugger and he gets this confirmation pop up:

and that the browser toolbox pops up automatically:

Unfortunately he says he can't post to this thread himself because he doesn't have a Google account (any workaround you may know of?).

So Firefox/Xulrunner's -jsdebugger option does seem to be working already with Zotero 7, at least in Windows (not in Linux though, for some reason)?

On the other hand, regarding the problem I'm having with fetch_xulrunner, maybe it's not worth it that I open a thread about that (yet) if nobody else is having problems with it, because I'm running a pretty outdated OS. But I will if the problem persists after I update to a newer OS soon!

[Dan Stillman]

On 7/19/24 10:14 AM, Diego de la Hera wrote:

So Firefox/Xulrunner's -jsdebugger option does seem to be working already with Zotero 7, at least in Windows (not in Linux though, for some reason)?

Oh, so it is! It actually was working on Windows and macOS, and I've fixed it for Linux in beta 104.

In light of this, we've also changed the build_and_run script to use -jsdebugger instead of -debugger when the -d flag is passed, and beta builds will no longer bind the devtools server on port 6100, since -jsdebugger uses its own random port and there's no real reason to connect from Firefox anymore.

I've updated our documentation to reflect this.

Thanks for pointing this out!

Unfortunately he says he can't post to this thread himself because he doesn't have a Google account (any workaround you may know of?).

You don't need to have a Google account to post to this list. It can be used like a normal mailing list.

- Dan

[Diego de la Hera]

> Oh, so it is! It actually was working on Windows and macOS, and I've fixed it for Linux in beta 104.

Yeay! It's working in Linux too now. Thanks, Dan!

> Thanks for pointing this out!

Thanks to Xiangyu Wang (windingwind). We noticed they were already using this option in their cool zotero-plugin-template!

> You don't need to have a Google account to post to this list. It can be used like a normal mailing list.

Thanks. I'll let him know for future reference.

Cheers!

Diego