Dropping pdf with long file names into Zotero library does not work

nhj
Under 3.0.3 Standalone XP dropping pdf files with long names in the middle pane into My Library/EPO does not work; they are simply ignored without any error message.

E.g. the following file does not get imported (168/179 chars (file/with path)):

D:\pdf\EPO\embo-j-18-3334-1999 Activation of the erythropoietin receptor by the gp55-P viral envelope protein is determined by a single amino acid in its transmembrane domain.pdf

When shortened by a few characters, it gets imported (148/159 chars (file/with path)):

D:\pdf\EPO\embo-j-18-3334-1999 Activation of the erythropoietin receptor by the gp55-P viral envelope protein is determined by a single amino acid in its .pdf

Needless to say that this is an absolute deal breaker. I will not rename thousands of pdf files only as a work around for this bug.
  • adamsmith
    edited February 19, 2012
    My guess would be that this is due partly to a windows limitation. If you drag a file to Zotero, it stores it in its internal storage folder:
    http://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data
    which at it's default location on Windows probably can have >80 length (Windows has a max. file length of 260 - I'm not sure if newer version still do - XP definitely does).
    Obviously Zotero shouldn't silently fail in such a case,
    but if I'm right about the cause, my recommendation to fix this on your side would be to move the Zotero data directory to a shorter location - e.g. D:\zotero
    you can do that in the advanced tab of the Zotero preferences.
  • dstillman
    edited February 19, 2012
    Yes, this is almost certainly due to a Windows path length limitation, and if you provide a Report ID we can confirm that.

    It shouldn't fail silently, but the only other options would be automatically shortening the filename or displaying an error message.

    During sync Zotero does a combination of those two things: it tries to shorten the filename as long as there's enough space left in the path (40 characters, if I recall) to do so reasonably.
  • mcjtom
    I'm too having problems with Zotero importing just subset of PDFs and then silently quitting. I'm not sure, but it could be caused by long filenames. The last answer implies (I think) that synching the files would do the deed (i.e. shortening filename + error), but how do I get the PDFs into Zotero in the first place?

    I don't even know how to truncate file names to some manageable length...
  • dstillman
    mcjtom: Start a new thread, say exactly what you're doing, and provide a Debug ID for an import attempt.
  • dstillman
    Here's the relevant ticket: https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/104
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