Reindex a linked pdf item freezes zotero

science2002

I installed zotero standalone as a portable version (http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=64825), with pdftotext and pdfinfo 3.02 installed. I do not know if this is true also for non-portable versions.

Zotero hangs under these actions.
1)I link a PDF with the menu, leaving it in its original folder.
2)I search through metadata the complete reference (this works really well in one-two seconds)
3)I see in the reference window that indexing is partial. I use Reindex item command (green icon or right click menu). At that point zotero freezes for 10 minutes or more.(I set indexing to first 20 pages).
3.1) I notice that, at this stage, zotero opens pdftotext.exe for just two-three seconds, then it is closed. At that point zotero.exe uses even more than 150Mb of Ram and absorbs 100%CPU and the whole application is freezed for a long time.
4) If the (same) PDF item is attached normally (not linked) the re-index action does not show any hanging and it is instantaneous.
****
Settings:
zotero sandalone v. 4.0.11
Test OS: xpsp2 /Ram: 500Mb /no Firefox installed.

dstillman

Is the linked PDF on your local hard drive, or somewhere else?

science2002

@Dan
completely local: it is in the OS documents/PDF/MyPDFZotero folder. Size does not matter. Hanging occures even with a 200Kb PDF.

After your question I tried to move a pdf file in documents folder, without the two other root folders. And the result is that it does no longer hang.
Question: could be that a folder rooted in a long path makes zotero to freeze?

dstillman

Does the PDF have a particularly long time? In other words, is it the full path length that's the issue?

science2002

@Dan: The full path+name was (in the smallest case) 121 characters, included spaces. The other pdf paths were 10-30 characters longer.
I do not konw the limit of the maximum length (I thought it was 256 characters), but with shorter paths than mine, indexing seems not an issue.

dstillman

But is the path length the issue? In other words, if instead of moving the file two folders up, you move it to a directory at the same level as the documents directory but give that directory a name as long as documents/PDF/MyPDFZotero was, does it fail?

science2002

@Dan: in attempt to answer your query, I created a new root with new folders, placing them as follows (note missing space and double ss):
C:\Documentsand settingss\Administrator\documents\pdf\MyPDFZotero

No freezing occurs: So it seems that it happens with the pdf is under %Personal% root at some point. However, as I said, under just documents the indexing works without freezes.

Update1: Other possibility could be the following: Zotero Portable saves a temporary folder in Application Data under Documents and Settings. The folder is deleted when Zotero quits. Yet, for whatever reason, it was not deleted in my session. When I deleted it, things seemed to work without freezes. Not sure if there are other reasons. I shall continue to do some testing.

Update2: I tried also the full installation. It gives the same freezes results. I realized that they occur with some PDFs linked to zotero (one of these files is a pdf v.1.4 created by Acrobat Distiller 5.0.5), while with others there is no problem, regardless where are located.