Failed Importing any Files! HELP!

sayhi97

Hi~
I have problems in importing files to Zotero. I have added pdf documents to zotero by dragging the pdf into the library, but there is no response (even no error reported). Then I added files by importing reference, the results were the same. Next, I tried pdf, caj, Chinese documents, English documents. Install, unload, install, unload……The results are no changed. The only way to reading my references is attaching files, but there is a problem in it. I delete a reference, my pdf document is also deleted. Please help me. I really want to use Zotero as my reference manage.

dstillman

First, read through Adding Items to Zotero to understand the recommended workflows (which isn't generally dragging files directly to Zotero, though that will work for many academic papers).

What do you mean when you say "there is no response (even no error reported)"? Do you see the pop up for retrieving metadata?

Can you provide a Debug ID for dragging an academic PDF to Zotero and not getting results?

sayhi97

Thanks for your reply! I also tried to click the green plus sign in the Zotero toolbar and choosing “Store Copy of File…”or add files as attachments to existing Zotero items by right-clicking on the Zotero item and choosing “Add Attachment”. The results that nothing happened were the same. I never see the pop up for retrieving metadata. The only way of adding my pdf documents is "link to file". But if I delete a item in Zotero, my pdf document in my computer is also deleted.
My debug ID is D746182927.

dstillman

(3)(+0000000): Importing attachment from file

[…]

(1)(+0000004): Error:

Win error 123 during operation removeEmptyDir on file C:\Users\[…]\Zotero\storage\E3GVY8SN (文件名、目录名或卷标语法不正确。
)

We've seen this reported a few times on Chinese systems.

Are you running any security software that might be interfering with Zotero? Have you by any chance set up the Zotero data directory or 'storage' directory as a symlink to somewhere else on your computer? (If you don't know what that means, the answer is no, but basically a low-level error is getting thrown here that shouldn't happen for a normal folder.)

sayhi97

Oh!!! I guess you find the reason. I set up 'storage' directory as a symlink to somewhere else on my computer, in order to have bigger sync zone. So how to cancel the symlink? Unload Zotero wholly? Or change the symlink? My setting is: cmd: mklink /j "C:\Users\user\Zotero\storage" " D:\…\storage"
Sorry, I am not good at the aspect. Can you help me continue the next step?

dstillman

We can't help with that — that'd be a Windows question. But you'll want to remove the symlink itself, and then move the actual 'storage' folder back to that location. Certainly no need to uninstall Zotero itself.

A symlink for 'storage' generally works fine on macOS and Linux, but symlink support on Windows is much newer and rarer, and we can't vouch for it.

sayhi97

Thanks a lot! Maybe I will use WebDAV to realize file sync.