[Bug]: loadlib failed with error 126: The specified module could not be found,

[huachuman]

Checklist

• I have used the search function for OPEN issues to see if someone else has already submitted the same bug report. (Note - if the bug report is about ZoTTS failing to start, please ignore this step and open a report anyway, start up failures can have various causes so it's easier to have separate issues for each, especially Linux users)
• I have also used the search function for CLOSED issues to see if the problem is already solved and just waiting to be released.
• I have described the problem with as much detail as possible.
• If the bug only to occurs with a certain paper, I will include its details.

Zotero version

7.0.8

ZoTTS version

1.3.0

OS

Windows

OS (specific)

Windows 11

Steps to reproduce

Note: initially no response, amended by dev for documentation purposes

1. Install ZoTTS
2. Restart Zotero
3. See that "error 126" popup appears three times
4. Uninstall ZoTTS
5. Error goes away

Expected behaviour

No error

Actual behaviour

error: loadlib failed with error 126: The specified module could not be found.

I close that and then a new message says something else like loadlib failed and does this three times i have to click x several times

[ImperialSquid]

Could you give more details about the error? When does it occur (during startup, during normal usage, etc)? Does doing something specific cause the error to occur? Is it a popup? Etc etc...

The more details you give me, the more I am able to help (which is why the "steps to reproduce box is there fyi).

[ImperialSquid]

Did some looking, that's not an error ZoTTS should be reporting, and Zotero doesn't look like it has anything like that either.

More likely it's a Windows issue itself, there's lots of posts from over the years of people saying they got error 126 from various programs. Try following a guide like this one and see if that fixes the issue.

Let me know if that works or if you still have any issues.

[huachuman]

I gave those a go, and more, but no luck. None of that fixed it. I even tried watching with the event listener to no avail, along with other possible fixes suggested elsewhere.

It happens a few seconds after Zotero is open and ready to go.

I managed to open Zotero's devtools and found this error in the console. It appears a few times.

Note that I've never seen this error in my life and use my computer ~15 hours a day for almost 20 years now. It only ever appeared after installing and running this plugin. And it does not happen when I disable it.

Really weird. Would love to have TTS in zotero.

[ImperialSquid]

Well regardless, the error 126 thing isn't something ZoTTS reports since

• It doesn't show errors in that style of popup, it uses the little popups that are built into Zotero and appear in the bottom right of the screen
• All error codes are turned into human readable messages anyway
• Error 126 seems to be due to loading DLLs (bits of code used by multiple programs on your computer), which ZoTTS doesn't interact with, it's just pure javascript running inside Zotero

You can try asking on the Zotero forums or open an issue with Microsoft, they'll be better placed to help you, I'm highly highly skeptical it's an issue with ZoTTS itself. (Though of course, I'm happy to fix it in the event I'm wrong...!)

---

As for the other thing you screenshotted, I'm aware of the error, it causes the plugin to fail to load properly on some machines (if you're coding minded, it's caused by a race condition crashing part of the plugin as it tries to initialise).

The bug was fixed as part of resolving issue #124 and is good to go, I just want to do a bit more testing and maybe fix one or two more issues before it's released in the next version.

---

Also, just to clarify, when you say "I only see this error with this plugin. It does not happen if I disable it", are you referring to the error 126 thing or the error message in the dev tools?

[huachuman]

I think there's some miscommunication going on here.

The error 126 I get specifically looks like this when it pops up

I click ok then this shows up

It does that 3 times.

When I say "I only see this error with this plugin. It does not happen if I disable it", I am referring to error 126.

I just screenshotted the Zotero devtools error because I thought it might be related.

I can 100% confirm that this 126 error only happens after enabling the plugin and restarting zotero. if I disable the plugin and restart zotero, there's no 126 error.

I should specify that the plugin itself doesn't actually seem to load at all after that error. I don't see any TTS features in Zotero. So maybe it's related? 🤷‍♂️

[ImperialSquid]

Very very strange...

I'll go away and do some investigating.

For the other things:

• The devtools error probably isn't related, but I appreciate you adding it
• The plugin deliberately doesn't load any UI stuff if it fails to load any engines (since there's only one at the moment, it doesn't load them if that one engine doesn't load, the problem in this case being the error pictured in the first screenshot you gave) - however, this has seemingly caused a lot more confusion than it's helped so I'm considering reversing the decision in the future...

Anyway, I'll do some digging about the error 126 thing and get back to you.

[ImperialSquid]

Forgot to ask earlier (and mostly just covering my bases):

• Do you have some voices installed on your computer? (In Windows settings, go to Time and Language > Speech > Manage Voices and check there's some there)
• If you go to this website, do you see those voices listed in the dropdown?

(I'm not expecting either of these steps to reveal the issue honestly, but it doesn't hurt to rule out the easy diagnosis routes first)

[huachuman]

Yeah, it seems I do have them.

Honestly though, I could just set up a different TTS solution, like balabolka or something. Not much sense in you debugging this if I'm the only one with the issue.

[ImperialSquid]

I mean you could but (and maybe this is just me), I find it kinda dissatisfying to say "it works on my machine 🤷, issue closed" lol

But at the same time, I don't want to get your hopes up that a solution is coming any time soon (or ever) since I've got various other things going on and this type of bug is very unfamiliar to me, so I can't make any promises about when it'll be fixed...

So with all that in mind, if you want to set up an alternative workflow for using TTS I think that's a very sensible course of action. In the mean time I'll keep this issue open and maybe you can try using ZoTTS again in the future 🤷 I appreciate you taking the time to submit a bug report and answering all my questions though! 😊

[huachuman]

Cheers! Totally understand. So many things to do.