Error in citation insertion using Mendeley desktop

[Bittu]

I have a .docx file, that has been prepared on a separate computer using MS Office. I have converted the file to .odt using Libre office and trying to insert new citations in it through the Mendeley plugin. It is showing the following error:

Error: An exception occurred
Type: com.sun.star.uno.RuntimeException
Message: SwXReferenceMark::InsertRefMark(): cannot insert attribute.
At line: 1058

I am using the up-to-date versions of both softwares.
No error occurs when I do the same in the original .odt document prepared solely using LibreOffice or in a .docx file in MS Office.

Now reported as a bug: tdf#142572, as suggested by @Hrbrgr

(link to bug report activated by ajlittoz)

[ajlittoz]

I am using the up-to-date versions of both softwares

What does it mean? Version potentially change every day and “up-to-date” versions may be different according to OS.

Consequently, edit your question (don’t use “Add answer” which is reserved for solutions, this site is not a forum) to provide OS name, LO version, Mendeley version. Describe also the “complexity” of the document (contains tables, frames or pictures, cross-references, …) and your formatting habit (styles vs. manual), more generally any information helping to understand the compatibility issues.

[Hrbrgr]

Have you looked to see if there is an answer for you?


[Bittu]

@Hrbrgr I did. None of the question are fully answered. There are some tips in the comments, which is not working. The question which describe the exact same situation is “Mendely: Word to LibreOffice”. This is not answered either.

[Hrbrgr]

Basically:

Always create and save your files in LibreOffice and save them in ODF format (ODT, ODS, etc.).
Always keep these files as their source. If you need other formats for distribution to partners, you can open an ODF file and save and distribute another format with ″ Save as… ″.

This way, you always have working files available in your system environment.

See:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/General/118#Edit_different_file_formats_in_LibreOffice

========================

Please report the behavior as a bug in Bugzilla .

Please announce the link from the bug here.

To do this, edit your initial question. Thank you.

[Hrbrgr]

How to find out the version number information for LibreOffice?

[Bittu]

@ajlittoz Thanks for activiting my bug report. But unfortunately, I don’t see any activity interms of Status and Assigne in the bug information page. I am wondering, is it usual!
Any improvement will be very much helpful. @ajlittoz @Hrbrgr

[ajlittoz]

LO development is community-based. It relies on volunteers. Unfortunately, they aren’t numerous enough compared to the size of the code base and number of recorded bug reports (yours already has number 142572!). They focus their attention on critical bugs first. A few devs are assigned to bug triage. This is the first step needed to draw attention of “fixers” on the bug. Those must be skilled in the domain addressed by the bug report and have some interest in the bug being fixed.

IMHO, your bug suffers from being related to a third party application. In addition, Mendeley goal goes far beyond than bibliography references within a document. It is a tool to organize and manage your whole bibliography, the citation feature being only a “minor” part of it. Integration into Writer is problematic for all bibliography apps, Mendeley, Zotero, … It is complicated by the fact that their authors try to do it “universally” (for all office suites) and implement it in a “virtual” way.

[ajlittoz]

I.e., very often, it is not integrated at all but emulated with macros (or equivalent) as an app within app (Writer) which is the worst solution because it duplicates many Writer primitives. This also questions the compatibility within Mendeley itself (has the encoding changed over the years?). In your case, you also started with .docx anc conversion to .odt or internal representation may have damaged Mendeley data (Writer expecting the file to only contain formatting and layout data) if it is not correctly protected.

Your bug report is less than one week old. There is nothing unusual on its activity. Expect triage to happen within one month.

If you’re in a hurry, you can also try to fix it by yourself: source code is freely downloadable and modifiable by anybody.

You should also contact Mendeley to report the issue. A huge part of the responsibility is on their side.

[Bittu]

Thanks for the explanation. I have approached Mendeley as well. They said ‘We don’t have an option to convert a word plugin document to LibreOffice…we will take this as a feature request and will forward it to our developers so they can check if this can be possible to add on Mendeley’