Reindex a linked pdf item freezes zotero

science2002
I installed zotero standalone as a portable version (http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=64825), with pdftotext and pdfinfo 3.02 installed. I do not know if this is true also for non-portable versions.

Zotero hangs under these actions.
1)I link a PDF with the menu, leaving it in its original folder.
2)I search through metadata the complete reference (this works really well in one-two seconds)
3)I see in the reference window that indexing is partial. I use Reindex item command (green icon or right click menu). At that point zotero freezes for 10 minutes or more.(I set indexing to first 20 pages).
3.1) I notice that, at this stage, zotero opens pdftotext.exe for just two-three seconds, then it is closed. At that point zotero.exe uses even more than 150Mb of Ram and absorbs 100%CPU and the whole application is freezed for a long time.
4) If the (same) PDF item is attached normally (not linked) the re-index action does not show any hanging and it is instantaneous.
****
Settings:
zotero sandalone v. 4.0.11
Test OS: xpsp2 /Ram: 500Mb /no Firefox installed.
  • dstillman
    Is the linked PDF on your local hard drive, or somewhere else?
  • science2002
    edited October 13, 2013
    @Dan
    completely local: it is in the OS documents/PDF/MyPDFZotero folder. Size does not matter. Hanging occures even with a 200Kb PDF.

    After your question I tried to move a pdf file in documents folder, without the two other root folders. And the result is that it does no longer hang.
    Question: could be that a folder rooted in a long path makes zotero to freeze?
  • dstillman
    Does the PDF have a particularly long time? In other words, is it the full path length that's the issue?
  • science2002
    @Dan: The full path+name was (in the smallest case) 121 characters, included spaces. The other pdf paths were 10-30 characters longer.
    I do not konw the limit of the maximum length (I thought it was 256 characters), but with shorter paths than mine, indexing seems not an issue.
  • dstillman
    But is the path length the issue? In other words, if instead of moving the file two folders up, you move it to a directory at the same level as the documents directory but give that directory a name as long as documents/PDF/MyPDFZotero was, does it fail?
  • science2002
    edited October 16, 2013
    @Dan: in attempt to answer your query, I created a new root with new folders, placing them as follows (note missing space and double ss):
    C:\Documentsand settingss\Administrator\documents\pdf\MyPDFZotero

    No freezing occurs: So it seems that it happens with the pdf is under %Personal% root at some point. However, as I said, under just documents the indexing works without freezes.

    Update1: Other possibility could be the following: Zotero Portable saves a temporary folder in Application Data under Documents and Settings. The folder is deleted when Zotero quits. Yet, for whatever reason, it was not deleted in my session. When I deleted it, things seemed to work without freezes. Not sure if there are other reasons. I shall continue to do some testing.

    Update2: I tried also the full installation. It gives the same freezes results. I realized that they occur with some PDFs linked to zotero (one of these files is a pdf v.1.4 created by Acrobat Distiller 5.0.5), while with others there is no problem, regardless where are located.
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