Upgraded to MacOS Mojave now Zotero doesn't load - 'Zotero Profile' cant' be loaded error

johnslparker

I upgraded to MacOS Mojave and now I can't start Zotero. I get a Profile Missing Error. I've looked at previous responses, but I am not sure exactly what I should do. I downloaded an updated version of Zotero and loaded as as second app, but that has the same error message. Any help would be very much appreciated.

dstillman

See https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/profile_directory

Does the Profiles directory exist? (Hold down Option when clicking the Finder's Go menu to get to your user Library folder.) Is there anything within it?

johnslparker

Yes, the profiles directory exists. It contains a directory labeled hbi71edk.default and profiles.ini file.

dstillman

What happens if you just rename that folder (the one containing profiles.ini) to Zotero-Old and restart Zotero?

johnslparker

I tried that. The same message appears. Now I have a new Zotero folder that is empty. I tried putting the profiles.ini in there, but that didn't work either...

dstillman

Try deleting the /Users/:user/Library/Caches/Zotero folder.

Are you running any security software on this computer?

johnslparker

I'm not running any security software. I have the Mac Firewall on, but turning it off didn't make any difference. The Caches folder didn't have a Zotero folder...

dstillman

Are you sure you're checking /Users/:user/Library/Caches and not /Library/Caches? If you've run Zotero previously, you should have a /Users/:user/Library/Caches/Zotero folder, unless the upgrade to Mojave automatically cleared the Caches folder (which it didn't for me).

Basically, if you're getting this error, something is preventing Zotero from reading or writing to either /Users/:user/Library/Application Support/Zotero or /Users/:user/Library/Caches/Zotero. Possibly file permissions, possibly something else on the system.

You can try in another user account to see if you can at least create an empty database there.

johnslparker

So I managed to resolve the problem based on your input. The Zotero folder was not present in the Users/:user/Library/Caches folder. I solved the problem by just creating a new folder called Zotero in the Caches folder. When I did that the program opened and all looks OK. I guess Mojave must have deleted the Zotero folder from the Caches folder when it loaded.

Thanks for your help. Much appreciated!!

dstillman

That might suggest a problem with the permissions of your Caches folder. All programs running as your user account should be able to create folders in there automatically.

dstillman

Also, you can close Zotero and try moving the Zotero-Old profile folder in /Users/:user/Library/Application Support back into place, which will restore your previous settings.

johnslparker

Thanks, yes I did that already. The Caches folder has System permissions for Read and Write, which I presume is what it should have. The other permissions are Read only

dstillman

And you're sure you're checking /Users/:user/Library/Caches, not /Library/Caches?

/Library/Caches should have 'system' Read and Write permissions, and shouldn't have a Zotero subfolder.

/Users/:user/Library/Caches should have Read and Write for your user account, and it should have a Zotero subfolder. If it only has 'system' Read and Write, that would explain this problem (and will likely cause other problems on your system, since nothing will be able to create cache folders). If that's the case, click the lock icon in the bottom right and make sure your user account has Read and Write permissions.

You should then see that, if you delete the "Zotero" cache folder, it's recreated automatically when you restart Zotero.