Zotero 5 in lab environment issue

A strange issue was reported to me, and replicated, regarding using Zotero on lab PCs. We have Zotero 5 installed as part of our computer lab image that is served through a virtual server. User A logs in to the PC and syncs their account on Zotero 5, then logs out of the PC. User B logs into the PC and can see User A's citations in their library. User A's account is not synced, and it will ask User B to sync their library, but it is still concerning that User B is able to see User A's library at all. Each user on the lab PCs logs in as themselves, so the user profile changes, so it seems that something is stored globally. Restarting the lab PC wipes out everything, because a new image is served on restart.
  • Zotero 5 stores library data in a "Zotero" directory in the home directory, and it sounds like that might be a global location in your setup (and maybe most roaming profile setups). Zotero settings, including the username, are stored within the Zotero profile directory, which is why it doesn't show User A's username to User B.

    In the next version, we're going to add a command-line flag to allow use of the profile directory for storing data. I'll post here when that's available.
  • OK, a command-line flag is available in the latest 5.0 Beta, and it'll be included in Zotero 5.0.18, which should be out in a day or two. You can pass -datadir profile to the Zotero executable to have it use a 'zotero' directory within the Zotero profile directory, the same as Zotero 4.0 did. (It also takes an absolute path, but that's probably not what you want.)
  • 5.0.18 is available now with this flag.
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