#1497 Import from Google Scholar stopped working

[Ömer Özak]

Hi,

Today I noticed that importing from Google Scholar stopped working. It used to work perfectly until a couple of days ago. I thought it had been caused by upgrading BibDesk on the computer I am currenbtly using, but checked on my laptop, which was up-to-date (v1.6.6.) and had worked perfectly and got the same issue.

I get an "Unable to parse as BibTeX" in the title instead of the actual reference. If I click on the "Import into BibTeX" option on Scholar, then it parses the publication correctly. I tried VPN to see if it was location specific, but got the same result. Parsing from CiteULike works though, so it might be Scholar changed something(?). Anyone else noticed this?

Example:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=albert+einstein&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44

http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar.bib?q=info:PAorv-zcZGMJ:scholar.google.com/&output=citation&scisig=AAGBfm0AAAAAV6EpRH67z3dgny7BE0ZmhR8JuqlyzQG6&scisf=4&ct=citation&cd=5&hl=en

[Christiaan Hofman]

Apparently they changed the formatting of their web search results.

This should be fixed in tomorrow's nightly build.

[Ömer Özak]

Great!

[P Olmsted]

Hi [see below: this is apparently a known issue],

This is still not working (version 1.6.6 (3984), on OS X 10.11.6). I downloaded the latest build (4 Sept 2016). I used to be able to search on GS and see 10 references per page (in the GS pane), and could important all of these 10 by clicking the "import" button within the Bibdesk pane.

Now it doesn't work and I don't see the list of 10 "import" buttons/items in the Bibdesk pane.

However, I set the hidden preference "defaults write edu.ucsd.cs.mmccrack.bibdesk BDSKDisableGoogleScholarListParsing -boolean true" as described here somewhere. Now I can import one at a time, but only by clicking on "Import into Bibtex" from within GS for the particular reference I want to import, and then I am shown the "import" button in the Bibdesk pane.

So it's still broken (for me). Can someone confirm whether it still works?

Thanks!

UPDATE - I uploaded the very most recent one (3984) from the nightly builds, reset the switch above to "false" [I had set it to "True" before downloading version 3984], and now it seems to work. Interestingly, I had to download the newest version and disable my security (within Mac Preferences) to be able to run it. I have seen this discussed in the forums as well.

2nd UPDATE: I see that there has been other traffic on this bug. Since it's quite "important" (at least to me :)). why not have users download a patch when they ask to "check for updates"? Are there not enough features/fixes yet to justify 1.6.7?

[Christiaan Hofman]

Does the URL start with "google.scholar.", without any prefix (except for the http(s) scheme)?

Havr you checked "Show links to import citations into BibTeX" in the Google Scholar settings?

[P Olmsted]

Here’s the URL: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?

In the end I got it to work (as noted above) by downloading a more recent build, rather than the “standard issue” version 1.6.6. Sorry for the hassle. Thanks for your efforts with BibDesk; it's much appreciated by many people, I know.

[Alan Munn]

Hi, this issue seems to have arisen again. (version 1.6.11). The Import into BiBTeX link shows up in the Scholar search, but nothing appears in the import panel below.

[Christiaan Hofman]

They probably changed their web format again.

[Alan Munn]

Sorry , false alarm. I reset the hidden preference again and it seems to be working.

[Mariska Bauwelinck]

Hi! This problem seems to be back (Version 1.6.13 (4389)) and High Sierra (10.13.3). The screenshot in attachment displays what I see as a user. Any solutions or workarounds? Thank you!

[Christiaan Hofman]

Did you turn on the bibtex citation preference in the Scholar settings? I
don't see the bibtex links in your screenshot.

[Mariska Bauwelinck]

Thank you very much for the instructions, this helped! It was already turned on, but I did it once more and it started working again! Thank you for the quick reply!

[Mariska Bauwelinck]

Unfortunately the problem is back, even though the bibliography manager settings in google scholar are set to BibTeX. How can I try to solve this problem?

[Christiaan Hofman]

One reason this may happen is that Google has rejected you. It tends to do that when it gets a lot of requests from a single source, and our parser downbloads each reference separately (Google gives no option for more efficient downloading).

[Mariska Bauwelinck]

Dear Christiaan,
Thank you very much for your prompt replies and for pointing me in the right direction. Eventually this issue seems to be dependent on the network connection I am using. It works perfectly when I am connected via ethernet or my mobile phone (hotspot) but not when I am connected via WiFi (different networks). Thank you one again!
Best,
M

[Christiaan Hofman]

Can you download the most recent nightly build and try it there? And if you still get the problem there, can you report the mode detailed error description you can then find in the Title, Url, Abstract and, Annote fields of an item you get.

[Kate Ross]

I was having trouble with this as well, even after downloading the nightly build (10.1.13). Then I noticed when I clicked on the link "import into bibtex" that shoudl be present in google scholar if you have set it up so that bibtex is generated, it took me to a "captcha" screen to ensure I was not a robot. Once I cleared that test I was able to get the bibtex imported and have not had troubles since then. I suspect this captcha step gets activated after the first few times you use bibdesk to download the bibtex files, at least that seems to be what happened to me.