Error opening Zotero

yuchen.ding

Hi,

I have been using Zotero for the past few years, recently stopped using for a couple months and found I cannot open Zotero anymore. I downloaded the Zotero for Mac standalone version (and it's the newest version available) and installed to my Mac. However whenever I tried to open it, there is this error:

Database upgrade error

Error: Error(s) encountered during statement execution: database disk image is malformed [QUERY: SELECT version FROM version WHERE schema='userdata'] [PARAMS: ] [ERROR: database disk image is malformed]
Zotero.DBConnection.prototype.valueQueryAsync<@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/db.js:709:10
From previous event:
ZoteroService@file:///Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/Resources/components/zotero-service.js:351:4
@chrome://zotero/content/include.js:4:14

I can't get through the error and fix it. Can anyone help decipher this error and come up with a solution? Thank you very much!!!

Best,
Erin

poettli

Does it appear after restarting the computer?

yuchen.ding

no it appears every time I tried to open Zotero - either before restarting or after...

dstillman

Your database is corrupted. Usually this happens when you have your Zotero data directory in Dropbox or another cloud storage folder, so if that's the case, you should move it back to the default location immediately and point Zotero there.

To repair your database, you can try the DB Repair Tool.