Zotero.exe - Entry Point Not Found

vincedmet

Hello,

I am helping a curator at the Metropolitan Museum with her Zotero library. She installed the standalone in Feb. 2016 and has been using it consistently since then. She most recently accessed her standalone about 2 weeks ago. This morning, when opening the standalone she was asked whether she wanted to update Zotero, clicked yes to this message, and then received the following error message:

"The procedure entry point ??0Decimal@WebCore@@QAE@ABV01@@Z could not be located in the dynamic link library mozglue.dll."

This was followed by a second error message: "Couldn't load XPCOM."

I've taken a look at her PC and when I click on the standalone icon, I also cannot get past these two error messages to open the standalone.

I've been searching the Forums and see that the recommendation to others who have experienced similar error messages is to re-install Zotero. However, I am worried that re-installing Zotero will wipe out her current library, which she's been curating for almost two years (many items and PDF files). She has not backed-up her Zotero library and so the only copy of her files is on her PC's hard drive (C), the same place in which the program/executable file is saved. I've never had experience with restoring a Zotero library.

Her current standalone version, which she cannot access, is 4.something. I believe she was being prompted to update to version 5.

Can anyone advise on how we can get back into the standalone without losing her library (citations, files, collections, tags, PDFs, etc.)?

Thanks.

dstillman

Reinstalling Zotero has no effect on data, but you should of course make sure she has a backup of her Zotero data directory (before the reinstall and at all times).

vincedmet

Okay, thanks, I'll give it a shot then after backing up her data directory.

vincedmet

Hello again,

Since we cannot get access to the standalone and hence to the "show data directory" feature, I am following the instructions at https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data for locating the default location of the curator's Zotero files for Zotero 4.0 standalone, Windows 7. However, once we get to C:\Users\user name\... there is no AppData folder and I cannot find her library anywhere else in this filepath. When I search for the zotero.sqlite file in her computer nothing comes up. How is this possible?

What I have done instead is right-clicked on the icon for the standalone and selected "open file location" and have backed-up whatever Zotero files I found there - C:\Program Files (x86)\Zotero Standalone. But this location does not contain a zotero.sqlite file nor a storage folder with her PDFs, etc. So I'm worried that I have not found her Zotero data directory.

Any other advice? thanks

adamsmith

AppData is hidden. Click on "View" and check "Hidden Items" in the File Explorer.

vincedmet

This worked! Thanks so much.

lbedal

i just had this same thing happen to me. I can't open my Zotero standalone since an automatic update attempt. My online library is not updated because I just never use it. I did make a backup of the data directory. Two questions:
1) To reinstall Standalone, do I have to first delete the program? (I am nervous to do this even with the backup)
2) Once it is reinstalled, will it automatically populate with the data on my computer or will I need to do something to get that started?

dstillman

@lbedal: Just reinstall from the download page. You don't have to do anything else first, and it won't affect your data.

lbedal

It worked. Thank you!