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As a public-service announcement, sort of, let me describe a problem I've had and a very clunky "solution." Perhaps this will help others and perhaps someone will tell us how to deal with it better.

Problem: on my iMac, but not my MacBook Pro, both using Mojave, Copy Citation often doesn't work for adding a Bookends citation to a point in Mellel text. I can create the citation by sliding the reference from the Bookend pane to the point in Mellel text. And, if the citation is already in the document, I can add an additional citation to the same reference by double-clicking the reference in the Mellel Bibliography pane (assuming Live Bibliography is on). It's only the "Add Citation" feature that doesn't work, but that's quite an annoyance.

In the past, I have several times been able to reinstitute the functionality by reinstalling Mellel and Bookends. But not always and, for a long time, not today until after a number of attempts with variations. I ended up doing all of the following:

-- Turning permissions OFF in System Preferences/Security/Privacy for Mellel to talk to Bookends and vice versa.
-- I reinstalled Mellel yet again (I had reinstalled Bookends earlier, upgrading in the process). This included removing the Mellel folder in Library/Applications Support (after saving a copy just in case).
-- I turned permission back on in System Preferences.

In earlier go-rounds with this problem, I had done nothing with System Preferences, assuming that would take care of itself after removing and reinstalling apps. It didn't.

All is well again, but the problem may arise again, perhaps after an update of the operating system, Mellel, or Bookends. It relates to Apple Events and Apple's efforts to prevent unintended communications. When first using the apps, the user is asked about granting permission. Subsequently, however, strange things can apparently happen. I do not have the problem on my MacBook Pro and neither the Redlers or Bookends folks have been able to reproduce it. I suspect, however, that others in the community have encountered it.

It would be very nice to know a streamlined fool-proof way to reestablish the communications when and if they break again.

And, if the citation is already in the document, I can add an additional citation to the same reference by double-clicking the reference in the Mellel Bibliography pane (assuming Live Bibliography is on).

You shouldn't need Live Bibliography to be on for that. Double clicking the reference in the Mellel Bibliography pane should be enough to insert a citation.

I don't have an iMac and I'm not using Mojave, but I have two suggestions. I assume you have already performed File –> Library Maintenance in Bookends and are running exactly the same applications on both computers.

1) If you use the default shortcut (Command y) in Bookends for Copy Citation, try executing the menu command with the mouse instead and see if that makes any difference. Also, try changing the shortcut (Command y) to something else. Perhaps you have defined Command y on your iMac to do something else in the past, but you have forgotten it now. Worth trying.

2) If everything else fails, I would create a new user account with administrative access (System Preferences –> Users & Groups) and run Mellel and a small, new ad hoc created Bookends database from this account. If that solves the problem, then something in your old account is definitely broken and you need to migrate to the new account, not using Migration Assistant though, because that would just shuffle the broken elements from the old to the new account.

Good luck!

Thanks.

You're right about Live Bibliography.

Yes, I've rebuilt the Bookends library and are using the same apps and versions on both machines.

All the several ways of invoking Copy Citation have the same results

The new-account experiment yields nothing now, but I will try it again next time the problem rears its head. Recall that I am currently up and running as the result of the reinstallation and toggling of communication permissions. The problem will return, however, and reinstallation of Mellel does not always work. From past correspondence and discussion with IT folks, it seems that Apple's mechanism for deciding whether to permit Apple Events between Mellel and Bookends gets confused somehow, probably when the OS or apps are updated. Resetting the permissions is not straightforward (there is a unix command to reset permissions, but that didn't work in the past). The idea behind reinstallation is to force the OS to ask afresh whether Mellel should be able to talk to Bookends with Apple Events and vice versa, thereby resetting things. I think that there are different degrees of reinstallation and I have not figured out what is necessary and consistently sufficient. I speculate that an easy fix might be something like deleting an Apple preference. If so, I don't know which one.

All is well again, but the problem may arise again, perhaps after an update of the operating system, Mellel, or Bookends.

Any update on this? Has the problem reared its ugly head again?

No sign of the problem for some months. I am still using the same operating system (Mojave).