something going on with the path to the pdf

daiti

[Split from Zotero will not open PDF]

The debug ID is D1125118548. Looks like there is something going on with the path to the pdf.

dstillman

From Stored Files and Linked Files:

Given the advanced nature of linked-file workflows, and the differences on individual systems, we're not able to help troubleshoot problems with specific setups.

You're using linked files, so you'll need to debug this yourself.

daiti

I appreciate the response. That said, with no debug info, no error message, and a problem that came out of nowhere (nothing was changed beforehand) it's difficult (if not impossible) to troubleshoot.
I managed to re-link all my files, but that means I probably lost all my annotations (fortunately the most important were imported in obsidian), which is not the best. I'll suggest you look into the problem since I'm not the only one experiencing it, and if that happens again (or to someone else) it would be troublesome.
Thank you again for the reply.
Regards,
MC

adamsmith

The chance that Zotero randomly changed filepaths in your database is close to zero, and that's the extent of Zotero's involvement with linked files. This could be caused by a setup issue, by a permissions issue on your system, by a broken add-on... It's not a general issue, otherwise we'd have hundreds of similar posts here.

You can look at the debug output yourself, which would tell you where Zotero is looking for files (which you could compare to where they are) so it's not like there's no debug information.

tim820

What happens when you right-click "Show File" on one of these PDFs ?

daiti

nothing. Looking at the debug it looks like the path gets repeated for some reason. Like suppose the path to the file is X, and the file name is Y, Zotero is trying to open the file X/X/Y.pdf

tim820

Do you have a setting for Linked Attachment Base Directory (which only determines where Zotero *looks* for linked files, not where they are stored) ?

Have your linked files ever been moved in your OS to a different location (or did a cloud folder where they are stored change its path for example) ?

There are two ways that paths to linked files can be stored in the Zotero database. If a LABD has *not* been set, the full path to each PDF (at the time it was added) is stored explicitly. Once a LABD has been set, each file's full path is replaced in the database (itemAttachments table) with an "attachments:" prefix. That tells Zotero to insert the LABD set on that particular computer in place of the prefix, in order to construct the path to open the PDF.

daiti

I set the Linked Attachment Base Directory when I first set up Zotero, but nothing has changed since then, and that's where my confusion about this problem comes from.

dstillman

This would be caused by misconfiguring the base directory on one computer, but in the latest Zotero beta we've fixed a bug that could prevent Zotero from automatically correcting the problem. The fix will be included in 7.0.6 soon.

dstillman

The fix mentioned above is available now in Zotero 7.0.7.