Zotero's "Add/Edit Citation" feature from the connector tool doesn't show results list

[radu-corbu]

Previously reported by someone else here: #9203.

Hyprland version

Hyprland 0.48.1 built from branch  at commit 29e2e59fdbab8ed2cc23a20e3c6043d5decb5cdc  (version: bump to v0.48.1).
Date: Fri Mar 28 16:16:07 2025
Tag: v0.48.1, commits: 5937
built against:
 aquamarine 0.8.0
 hyprlang 0.6.1
 hyprutils 0.7.0
 hyprcursor 0.1.12
 hyprgraphics 0.1.3


no flags were set

Regression

Not sure. I think that a few years ago when I used Hyprland for the first time, Zotero worked just fine.

Describe the bug

The Zotero bibliography generator has a browser extension that lets the browser communicate with the Zotero application in order to search and generate citations inside of Google Docs. The extension launches a window in which you can search for citations from the Zotero application and then insert them into the doc. Currently, the search function is broken, only on Hyprland: if you try to search for anything, the result list doesn't appear.

Worth noting: it doesn't matter whether I use the browser extension + Google Docs or their plugin for LibreOffice + a LibreOffice doc. The result list doesn't show up either way.

Here is a demonstration of the bug:

• in Hyprland: https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0fff3599-db1f-477e-92be-aa4a432a4b1f
• in a Plasma session under the same system, the Zotero Connector works fine: https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2bf94ddc-ae78-4959-beb4-f150070b4e01

Reproduction steps

1. Install Zotero (see here or the AUR package zotero-bin)
2. Install Zotero Connector for your Firefox/Chrome(-based) browser.
3. Launch Zotero and add some bibliography reference (for example, use the "add item by identifier" option and add this example DOI string: 10.1177/1948550616652206)
4. Open a Google Doc and try to insert a Zotero citation (CTRL + ALT + C or click on the Zotero menu from the Google Docs UI --> Add/edit citation)
5. Select a Google account and allow access for the Zotero Connector
6. In the quick format citation searchbar that pops up, try to search for the reference you had entered in the Zotero app. The searchbar should display a result list, but doesn't, making you unable to add any citation.

System info and config

• hyprctl systeminfo -c
• hyprland.log (you will see in the logs some window rules matching the Zotero searchbar (titled "Progress") - even if I disable them, the issue persists).

[fufexan]

Can repro this. The window is also not resizable.

Looks like a workaround for now is to select "classic view" by clicking on the Zotero icon, which will open Zotero and allow you to select citations.
EDIT: Nvm, saw you already provided this workaround in the original issue.

[radu-corbu]

Yeah, you can use the classic view, but it takes noticeably longer to add citations that way, since it opens a new Zotero window whose UI requires more steps for adding (a list of) citations.

[vaxerski]

is that an x11 app? In general, that's not how stuff like this is done on wayland and I don't think it's something I want to support.

[fufexan]

No, it's wayland-native. Based on Firefox.

This is how the citation window with results should look.

[vaxerski]

well then it uses a toplevel which is not how this should be done, even more so. Violates the spec's idea as far as I am concerned.

[radu-corbu]

Update: Since vaxerski mentioned it might be the Zotero app violating Wayland specifications, I decided to report the issue on their forums as well, here.

One user mentioned that Zotero 7.1 beta has an update to the citation dialog. I installed it and the issue went away. For Arch users, see zotero-beta-bin in the AUR.

For anyone running into this issue in the future, I recommend adding the following window rules to your Hyprland config, so that the Zotero progress bar and the citation dialog are floating & centered. By default they are tiled and do not look very good:

windowrulev2 = float,class:^(Zotero)$,title:^($|Citation Dialog$)
windowrulev2 = center,class:^(Zotero)$,title:^($|Citation Dialog$)

If the window animations bother you, you can also add this:

windowrulev2 = noanim,class:^(Zotero)$,title:^($|Citation Dialog$)

This part: ^($|Citation Dialog$) matches an empty title OR "Citation dialog". The progress bar has an empty title for whatever reason.

This is an updated version of these suggested window rules from an older Hyprland discussion.