Remove broken links to attachments

douglasrizzom

After fiddling a lot with Zotero data directory, I ended up having many duplicate entries in my library. Some of them had broken links to attachments (PDF files and the like). When I click on the link (an attachment to a PDF, for example) without knowing it is broken, Zotero warns me of the broken link and allows me to find the attachment again.

I was hoping if there could be a way to find these broken links and manage them, either in a manual or automatic way. I thought that by clicking on the "Check Database Integrity" button (Preferences > Advanced > Files and Folders), something like that would turn up and save me, but instead I got a message saying my database is intact. I understand that this functionality is supposed to check the integrity of the SQLite database and maybe the files in the data directory, but Zotero does not visually show which links are broken and the user's only option is to check one by one or be surprised when the situation comes up. On top of that, in a situation like mine, I must have many broken links, but there is no way to either find or handle all of them (either by re-selecting the files or removing the links).

dstillman

The blue dots in the middle pane show you if the associated file exists. You can even sort by it (though only by the parent item).

Beyond that, I'm not sure what you mean by "fiddling", but you're really not supposed to touch the data directory outside of Zotero at all.

douglasrizzom

Thanks for the info, I was able to solve my immediate problem and get rid of inexistent attachments (200 or so). But isn't it sensible if we could get rid of all of them at once?

And by fiddling, I mean I was trying different ways of synchronizing my library between my computers and my tablet, so I ended up with many duplicate entries along the way. This is a very old library.