Older version for download?

lz

My production computer started behave strangely so I am forced to make a new installation of my tools on a reserve computer. (yes, I have backups too). There is still some live in the old installation. That makes the new installation easier so I don't want to slay it yet.

The problem is: the old version of Zotero is 1.0.0b3r1. The only version to download is the new 1.0.0rc2. Yes, there are interesting news in that version but a conversion of the database is necessary for this new version. My reserve computer has only 512 Mbyte memory. The conversion process provokes swapping after about 15 minutes and a single view on the result of the command top makes me understand that it is not realistic to get results the near future.

Yes, there will be more memory, but I need to go on with my work NOW and the older version (1.0.0b3r1) installed on the reserve computer will solve the problem immediately. Please, advise where I can get it.

A possibly interesting detail: the Zotero directory is about 1.3 Gbyte.

dstillman

We'd be happy to upgrade your database for you if you upload it to the DB Repair Tool and e-mail us the Upload ID.

B3 is a very old version with critical bugs, and it is no longer available for download.

lz

I may be silly and paranoid but I generally dislike the idea of leaving hard disks and/or data collections away. I really have no reason to suspect you (besides eventual possibility of analyzing different ways of using Zotero) but my instincts, my intestine and my work rules say no. Even so thanks for your offering.

The best solution would be a conversion tool independent of Firefox (why not a command-line tool). Firefox is known to do strange things with memory. Take it as a suggestion for the next version of the conversion tool.

My only solutions seems to be to start a new database for new additions and try to survive until more memory or better computer is available to convert the old database. Is there a tool for concatenation of databases? Are there any complications with such procedure (tags, collections, date formats ...)?

dstillman

We'd just run the upgrade in Firefox on a fast machine, send it back, and delete it, but I completely understand.

If you want to speed up the upgrade process, grab a copy of the SQLite command line client from the SQLite download page (or get it via MacPorts on a Mac) and, with Firefox closed, open up the pre-upgrade zotero.sqlite file. Clear the fulltext word index with "DELETE FROM fulltextItems;". You could also dump it to a text file with the .out and .dump commands before clearing.

With fulltextItems cleared, the upgrade should be very quick.

If you saved the fulltextItems table to a file, replace all instances of fulltextItems with fulltextItemWords and load it back into the upgraded database with the command-line client to restore your fulltext word index.

If you have mostly snapshots (rather than web links), you could forget about dumping to a text file and just rebuild the fulltext word index in the Zotero preferences after upgrading. Web links can't be reindexed, since the original page is no longer available.

Hope that helps.

raf

I didn't try the download options or try to install the actual version, but it looks like 1.0.0b3.r1 can still be downloaded from the Firefox add-ons page.