ALL DATA AND ATTACHMENTS UNREACHABLE

tortugamarina

Zotero was saving data and attachments within a directory in ~/.mozilla/firefox/9is9uuc7.default
Suddenly, on opening the app (Ubuntu 20.04, Firefox 83) it failed to find the directory, made an empty new one in ~/Zotero/, containing just empty templates, but no info.
The directory is still there, and I can access it through gnome with no apparent problem. Moving the subdirectories of 9is9uuc7.default/ to Zotero/ makes no difference. When I go to preferences and try to change the file directory, it fails to find the firefox, and really the file explorer interface only identifies a small number of directories, either hidden or not hidden. Am I missing something?

tortugamarina

Still more strange: tried to move the whole 9is9uuc7.default folder elsewhere. On opening Zotero, it rebuilt an empty one, but still unable to see it within the zotero explorer (the one that opens to look for the directory. Any advice?

dstillman

Zotero was saving data and attachments within a directory in ~/.mozilla/firefox/9is9uuc7.default

That's your Firefox profile. Zotero used to stored data there back when it was a Firefox extension — the last version of which was over three years ago.

Zotero 5, which was released in 2017, automatically migrates the data directory (the 'zotero' folder within '9is9uuc7.default') to the new default location, ~/Zotero. If you hadn't upgraded to Zotero 5 in years, or something on your system prevented Zotero from moving the directory, it would continue using the directory within the Firefox profile.

It sounds like what happened now is that you installed a third-party Zotero package that's sandboxed, such that it no longer has access to the data directory within the Firefox profile — and that's also why it only shows a small number of directories when you browse for files.

We can only provide support for the official Zotero tarball, but to fix this all you need to do is move the contents of ~/.mozilla/firefox/9is9uuc7.default/zotero — zotero.sqlite, 'storage', and other files — to ~/Zotero, such that ~/Zotero/zotero.sqlite exists. Zotero will then use that database.

Before doing this, you should delete everything else that you previously copied to ~/Zotero (or move them back to the Firefox profile), since it sounds like you tried to copy your entire Firefox profile there. Those files have nothing to do with Zotero and shouldn't be there.

dstillman

tried to move the whole 9is9uuc7.default folder elsewhere. On opening Zotero, it rebuilt an empty one

No, Firefox did that. You're deleting folders in your Firefox profile. Nothing to do with Zotero. The old Zotero for Firefox just used to store its data directory there as 'zotero'.

tortugamarina

That makes sense, because it started happening just after I updated libreoffice (I use a lot the zotero toolbar). Yes, I did use the Firefox extension, but I switched to standalone years ago--and I have version 5. It seemed odd that the directory should be within mozilla. Will take my time to backup the 9is9uuc7.default directory, and report back the results.

And let me tell you something: thank you for a very quick answer during a crisis, I appreciate that a lot. It was a moment of sheer panic!

tortugamarina

Changed browser to avoid accidents. Do you think this might have been caused by the zotero buttom in Firefox?

dstillman

I explain exactly what caused this above, as well as exactly how to fix it. This has nothing to do with Firefox and nothing to do with the Zotero Connector button in Firefox.

tortugamarina

There was just one error message: a pipe not copied. The rest of it was smooth: copied the directory zotero to ~/Zotero, restarted the whole thing, got my info back. Now: I'd like to know if the zotero buttom in Firefox caused this, and if so, what do you suggest as an alternative--it was spooky.

dstillman

I really can't explain this more clearly than I did above. This has absolutely nothing to do with the button in Firefox.

Again:

It sounds like what happened now is that you installed a third-party Zotero package that's sandboxed, such that it no longer has access to the data directory within the Firefox profile — and that's also why it only shows a small number of directories when you browse for files.

When your third-party, sandboxed package of Zotero lost access to the data directory in the Firefox profile, it reverted to the default data directory location of ~/Zotero, which was empty.

dstillman

If you're now successfully running Zotero with ~/Zotero as the data directory, you should delete the old 'zotero' directory in your Firefox profile to avoid future confusion.