Unexpected error ID 708411686

fmolina

Hello,

I work with zotero 3.0.11 in ff 17.0.1, win 7 pro 64 bits. I have been working for several hours with zotero in full tab mode. Suddenly, when I clicked on an item in the central pane I got a message in the pane (no pop up dialog) saying something like "internal zotero error. Please restart firefox and send error report". This is what I am doing; sorry, but I have no idea how to reproduce the error.

Regards

dstillman

[JavaScript Error: "[Exception... "'The file 'D:\[...].pdf' cannot be updated. Check that the file is not currently in use and that it is not marked as read-only. To check all files in your Zotero data directory, right-click on the 'zotero' directory, click Properties, clear the Read-Only checkbox, and apply the change to all folders and files in the directory.

Restarting your computer or disabling security software may also help.' when calling method: [nsIDOMEventListener::handleEvent]" nsresult: "0x8057001c (NS_ERROR_XPC_JS_THREW_JS_OBJECT)" location: "" data: no]"]"

This file sync error shouldn't cause Zotero to need to be restarted, but it suggests that something on your system—likely security software—may be interfering with Zotero's file syncing.

See if you can reproduce the problem by syncing. If you can, we should fix that, but you should also figure out what's interfering with file syncing.

If you can't reproduce the problem, don't worry about it.

fmolina

Hi Dan,

Now I realized what happened. I replaced a pdf outside zotero, which may have caused the error. This is connected to a problem I find quite often: pdf files in my zotero local storage get corrupted from time to time. The worst part is that if I select "Show file" in zotero's context menu I get the dreaded "Windows explorer stopped working" message; this happens no matter what is the default pdf viewer (acrobat, eXchange viewer, even notepad++!) set as default. I don't know if there is a way to prevent that. Usually, what I do is to delete the pdf and then download it again which, depending on publication, etc. sometimes is not easy. This time, to try another way, I managed to delete the file from the command prompt, downloaded the online zotero version (was OK) and pasted it in z storage. Obviuosly, something got screwed up.
The problem with the corrupt pdf is irritating, but I cannot figure out what happens. I have three machines synced, and the fail seems to appear in any of them; however, sometimes I also find the online version bad, so perhaps it occurs in one machine and eventually it propagates by syncing? I really don't know what to do.

Sorry by the long story; if you can give me an advice, I will be grateful.

Regards,

Fernando

dstillman

What do you mean by "corrupted"?

fmolina

I mean that it cannot be opened. Double clicking in zotero gets the following responses:

Acrobat reader says "File is damaged and cannot be repaired"

PDF-Xchange viewer is more helpful and tells:
"Code: 0x82142717
Description: Error [PDF Structure 40]: Invalid property type"

Right-click and selecting "Show file" causes the "Windows explorer stopped working" error mentioned (on Win 7, XP does not fail (?))

I can send you one of these files if it is of any help.

Thanks!

dstillman

You can send a file to support@zotero.org, with a link to this thread.

But just to be clear, the error above is usually caused by security software. It wouldn't be caused by a corrupt file unless the actual filesystem was corrupt or the hard drive was damaged.

dstillman

The file in question was the PDF in 'storage/8C58GZCJ' in your Zotero data directory. Can you open that file through Explorer?

Right-click and selecting "Show file" causes the "Windows explorer stopped working" error mentioned (on Win 7, XP does not fail (?))

Maybe Windows 7 tries to do an inline preview of the PDF?

fmolina

I have just sent the file, but I checked and it is truncated (670 K against 3.8M), so looks like a sync problem.
I have deleted the file of the original error, but with any file with the same problem trying to open the file directly causes the same explorer error. Yes, probably win 7 is trying to do some preview.
I tried disabling the antivirus but with no help. Only avast is active, no other.

Regards,

Fernando

dstillman

We have no other reports of anything like this, so this is almost certainly caused by something on your system.

I tried disabling the antivirus but with no help.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. No help with what? Disabling security software wouldn't have any effect on Explorer hanging on a corrupt file, if that's what you mean.

Are you still getting messages like the one above when you try to sync down files from the server? That's the error that disabling security software should fix.

fmolina

OK, I will see how to find the problem ... It should be one of my machines behaving badly.
The fact is that the truncated (or otherwise bad) files apparently appear at random, so is very difficult for me to catch the error. Sync seems to be OK, but then I try to open a pdf file to find that it does not open.
Thanks anyway