PDFs suddenly not opening in Firefox

jonschatz
Hey, I'm a relatively new (~1 month) Zotero user.

Today, for no apparent reason, when I double click on a library item, it opens the PDF in Acrobat instead of a new Firefox tab. I didn't change anything and confirmed in preferences that the check box is still checked for "Open PDFs and other files in Firefox when possible."

Any guess what might cause this? I rebooted the 'puter (2011 MacBook Pro) with no luck.

One other question I've been meaning to ask: Is is possible to create sub-folders to hold saved searches.

Thanks!
  • dstillman
    edited August 7, 2014
    Start here: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/file_handling_issues
    One other question I've been meaning to ask: Is is possible to create sub-folders to hold saved searches.
    No, but it's a fairly common request and will probably happen eventually.
  • jonschatz
    Thanks for the reply. Tried to delete the mimeTypes.rdf file as directed, but weirdly when I navigate to <user>/Library there is no Zotero folder located there.

    Could this possibly have anything to do with OnyX (a freeware program that cleans up caches, etc. and deletes temporary items)? I did an OnyX run of multiple maintenance operations yesterday (although I think Zotero was working normally after that).
  • dstillman
    If you're using Zotero for Firefox there wouldn't be a Zotero folder within Library. Make sure you follow the profile directory instructions for Zotero for Firefox, not Zotero Standalone.
  • dstillman
    Assuming your data directory is in the default location and you haven't used Zotero Standalone, you can also just locate your Zotero data directory and go up a directory.
  • jonschatz
    OK found the right folder and deleted mimeTypes.rdf, but it didn't fix things.

    I notice in Firefox preferences/Applications the setting for PDFs is currently "Always ask." (might have been changed by OnyX).

    Should it be set instead to "Use Adobe Acrobat NPAPI Plugin" instead? Or maybe "preview in Firefox"?
  • dstillman
    Was Firefox closed when you deleted the file? If not, try again. It should default to "Preview in Firefox" if you did it correctly. Anyway, that's the setting you want if you want PDFs to display using Firefox's native viewer (though it's possible the presence of the Acrobat NPAPI plugin is messing things up, so you might want to disable that from the Plugins tab of the Firefox Add-ons window).
  • dstillman
    (Or maybe it doesn't default to "Preview in Firefox" if the Acrobat plugin is installed...)
  • jonschatz
    I had the plugin turned off already turns out.

    Changing to "preview in firefox" did the trick.

    Thanks!
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