there was an error starting Zotero

swidgen

That is the message I get. The program would show my directories, but not my files in them. I managed to run the error report wizard and got the following Id: 419932297.
Now the program won't load at all, all I get is the "error starting Z" message when I click on the Z button.

adamsmith

http://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_bugs#reporting_startup_errors

swidgen

Right, thanks. The page says to do that if the error report wiz doesn't work. Mine is working again, and I got the following result:

Error Id 927601419

swidgen

And I should describe the problem: Zotero loads, I see my directories but my files do not show, and I get the message: there was an error starting zotero. I still have access to the menus and was able to run the error report wizard, but cannot access my citations and notes.

dstillman

Are you able to provide a Debug ID for Firefox startup through opening the Zotero pane, using the "Enable after restart" debug output option?

dstillman

Actually, never mind. I found the error in your first Report ID.

dstillman

[JavaScript Error: "NS_ERROR_FAILURE: Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIFile.lastModifiedTime]" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/translation/translator.js" line: 67}]

This could be do to security software on your system interfering with Zotero's (really Firefox's) ability to access the Zotero data directory, specifically the 'translators' subdirectory. If you have security software, try disabling it. You can also try deleting the 'translators' directory, or checking its permissions, but that shouldn't be necessary unless you (or something) altered it.

swidgen

It worked. I turned off Windows Firewall and this time did not get the error. I then exited Firefox, turned the firewall on again and opened Firefox, and everything still worked.
Thank you guys so much for all your help.

swidgen

Oops. It started all over again, even with the firewall disabled. I'll try deleting the translators' directory.

dstillman

I don't know what Windows Firewall does, exactly, but generally speaking firewall software wouldn't affect writing to disk. This would generally be due to anti-virus software or similar.

swidgen

Ok, I deleted the translator's directory and it worked, everything's back.