(Ubuntu MATE 20.04.2) - desktop - & icon shortcut in taskbar do not work

maexbln

Hello dear community, I can't find a suitable solution to the above problem in various forums.

I installed Zotero manually according to the instructions in the Ubuntuusers forum (home directory): https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Zotero/

Now the problem arises that I can start Zotero from the folder "Zotero_linux-x86_64" via the Zotero icon or via the start menu, but not via the desktop shortcut (on the desktop) and the icon in the taskbar, because after double-clicking simply nothing happens.

When I try to create a symlink via terminal with "ln -s ~/Downloads/Zotero_linux-x86_64/zotero.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/" as described in step 4 of the manual installation, I am told that the symbolic link is not possible because the file already exists.

Can you please help me solve this problem? I've been trying for several hours now.... :(

dstillman

I'm afraid we can't really provide general Linux support. Zotero ships with a standard .desktop file, but setting it up might vary on different distributions. We provide instructions that work in general.

But you should check (e.g., with ls -la ~/.local/share/applications to make sure that the symlink in ~/.local/share/applications is actually pointing to the location of the zotero.desktop file on your system.

MaxPetras

If you follow the steps provided on the Zotero homepage, during the process a file within ~/.local/share/applications is being created, that is broken. Delete this file, repeat the process and it should work.