Upgrade StorageSwitching from DropBox to Zotero storage
Hi, I have finally decided to go with zotero upgraded storage and tried to redirect Zotero from my DropBox folder where I had data and files stored. The library and data files are on the zotero server but when i click on a library item, it opens the web location and is unable to locate the snapshot/file. I changed the data directory location in preferences to Firefox profile directory and chose file syncing of attachments using zotero and syncing file attachments using zotero storage. New items that I add link to files correctly but the preexisting ones cannot find the attachment. Any suggestions?
What happens exactly when you click on an attachment in your local Zotero client ?
the library item within Zotero will not open the attachment offline.
I am also wanting to access my library items in ZotPad and iannotate on my iPad which needs to access the attachment files.
You should explain how you had the Dropbox sync set up and how you "disabled" that. Maybe the attachment files are not currently in the right place on your computer?
I set DropBox up to sync all folders/files automatically and I simply had a zotero folder. The zotero folders are still in DropBox but I changed my Zotero preferences - under Advanced, I changed data directory location from my dropbox location to now be "use profile directory'. Also under sync, I ticked sync automatically and both sync attachment files in My Library using Zotero and sync attachment files in Group libraries using zotero storage. (note, most of my library items are not filed - I just keep them together in My Libary - I don't have any group libraries - I don't expect this makes any difference).
When I click on "view snapshot" for an item I get a dialog box that says "the attached file could not be found. It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero. There is a locate button which, when clicked, takes me to the storage folder (firefox\ profiles\[myprofile]\zotero\storage\folder for each library item. This has happened when I changed computers a couple of times previously before so to remedy the problem I moved the zotero folder (and all the folders below)to the location where I wanted them. I expect I could move the zotero folder from my DropBox to sit below my firefox profile. i think in the process previously though, that I may have ended up with duplicate files/folders (not the storage folder though). So I expect I have done something fundamentally incorrect which I would like to identify. As I am keen to set up ZotPad as well, I would like to ensure the Zotero side of things is clean and tidy before adding another layer of complexity.
Should I have done anything differently? Any suggestions for remedying problem would be appreciated. many thanks, debbie
of note, is the fact that any new additions I make to my library work fine - I can view snapshots offline so there is no problem with how it works from here on, it is only with the pre-existing items.
When you tell Zotero to move the data folder, it only moves the location, not the data - i.e. you started out with a completely empty library briefly after moving. (what you ideally should have done is copy your entire data directory over from your dropbox folder to the new location in the firefox profile).
Since you had synced to Zotero (apparently), that library was populated from the zotero server - but you had never synced your files to the zotero server, so those never made it.
Anyway - this should be easy to fix.
1. Open your _old_ Zotero folder, the one that is on dropbox.
2. in that folder there is a folder called "storage". Open that.
3. You'll see a lot of folders with weird letter combinations like W87FJKAL - those contain your attachments. Copy all of these folders.
4. Open your _new_ zotero folder - the one in the Firefox profile
http://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data#locating_your_zotero_library
5. Open the (new) "storage" folder there
6. Paste all of the (weird letter) folders from your old storage folder into the new one.
You should now be able to open all files locally from within Zotero.
The old files might not yet sync, though. For that Reset the File Sync History as described under 4. here:
http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/files_not_syncing
I do actually have all the item folders in the storage folder within my firefox profile. should I delete them before I copy them from my dropbox storage folder.
also, I can't find where to enable the debug output logging as asked for in the last step associated with the reset.
I link to the instructions on files not syncing above _only_ for step 4. Disregard everything else on that page.
Open the Advanced pane of the Zotero preferences. You can access the Zotero preferences from the gear menu in the Zotero toolbar or via Tools → Add-ons → Extensions → Zotero → Options/Preferences.
Click “Enable” under Debug Output Logging.
Immediately perform the relevant action (syncing, saving, importing, etc.).
Before doing anything else, click “Submit to Zotero Server” in the Advanced pane of the preferences. After uploading the output, Zotero will provide a Debug ID that you can post to the forums. There's no need to post the actual debug output.
Disable debug output logging and click “Clear Output”.
(As a side note, though, those instructions are pretty straightforward, so you'd have to say precisely what you don't understand about them.)
Follow the rest of my instructions and see if you can open the files. Then worry about the reset.
I ended up having to change my location from the firefox profile to a folder higher up as when I copied the folders within my storage folder from DropBox to the location in my Firefox profile, I ended up with 143 files that had names that were too long (this would be because I am using an organistational computer and my firefox profile had a number of folders in its path before the firefox folder. I have read that there is a limit to the number of characters in a file name with Windows 7 (which I am using). Suffice to say I now have a location with a shorter file path and copied all my items from my DropBox storage into the new storage folder. I still however cannot view snapshots offline. On the Zotero server, i can access the snapshots fine but not offline from my computer (which I really want)except for a few records I added yesterday which work fine offline. the only way I know i can remedy this problem is to use my list of library items to access the website from which they originally came and save as a new item and delete the faulty one. This would be very time consuming and i would lose changes, notes, tags that i had in the original items so I am not keen to go this path.
If that's the case, running the "Reset File Sync History" should fix this, though I'm a little puzzled how this situation could have possibly come about.
If that's not the case, we would now need that debug ID for trying to open one of your snapshots:
Instructions are here: http://www.zotero.org/support/debug_output
if something is unclear, please be specific what.
It appears that most of my library items are now accessible offline and just a few are not. I think i will go through one by one and create new records and delete the old ones for the few that do not show snapshot. this is the debug ID for what I have done recently fyi The Debug ID is D1300723304.
thanks to all so much for your help. i expect i will be right once i fix the few errnat records(hopefully it is only a few). Then I'll progress to setting up ZotPad :-)
computer\C\Users\dfabian\appdata\roaming\mozilla\firefox\profiles\myprofile\zotero...
some of the files within my item folders had pretty long names which I think was the cause of the problem as windows only allowed 260 characters - although with that many characters I can't have exceeded by much one would think.
this was supposed to be a fix but I didn't go that route http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982502/en-us
thanks again for your help,
debbie