Zotero Profile Missing

vdavis6
After using Zotero problem free for quite some time, the Stand Alone application would not open this morning. I receive the error message "PROFILE MISSING: Your Zotero profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible."

I tried restarting the computer and reinstalling Zotero Standalone, but I continue to receive the same message.

When attempting to open through command code, I get the following information:

Could not read chrome manifest 'file:///Applications/Zotero.app/Contents/MacOS/chrome.manifest'.
Timestamp: 5/11/15, 9:09:08 AM
Warning: mutating the [[Prototype]] of an object will cause your code to run very slowly; instead create the object with the correct initial [[Prototype]] value using Object.create
Source File: resource://gre/modules/Preferences.jsm
Line: 381
While creating services from category 'profile-after-change', could not create service for entry 'MobileConnection Service', contract ID '@mozilla.org/mobileconnection/mobileconnectionservice;1'
OpenGL compositor Initialized Succesfully.
Version: 2.1 INTEL-8.28.33
Vendor: Intel Inc.
Renderer: Intel HD Graphics 5000 OpenGL Engine
FBO Texture Target: TEXTURE_2D
OpenGL compositor Initialized Succesfully.
Version: 2.1 INTEL-8.28.33
Vendor: Intel Inc.
Renderer: Intel HD Graphics 5000 OpenGL Engine
FBO Texture Target: TEXTURE_2D

Thank you for your help!
  • adamsmith
    were you using that with Firefox or another browser?
  • vdavis6
    I use Safari, but I don't have the web extension installed.
  • dstillman
    See https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/profile_directory

    Does the Profiles directory exist? (Hold down Option when clicking the Finder's Go menu to get to your user Library folder.) Is there anything within it?
  • vdavis6
    No, Zotero is not listed in the Application Support folder.
  • dstillman
    Are you sure you're looking in the right place? To clarify, this is /Users/:user:/Library/Application Support, not /Library/Application Support. If the Zotero directory is missing, Zotero should just create a new one. The error message you're getting occurs when the random-string directory within Profiles pointed to in profiles.ini is missing.
  • vdavis6
    From the Finder I chose the Harddrive, then Library, then Application Support.

    Selecting the Harddrive, Users, my username does not bring up a Library folder. I do have a Zotero folder in documents (a backed up copy of my library).
  • dstillman
    Yeah, that's wrong. I told you how to access the correct folder above:
    (Hold down Option when clicking the Finder's Go menu to get to your user Library folder.)
  • vdavis6
    Apologies, I didn't realize Finder had options on the menu bar.

    From the Finder, holding down option while clicking the Go menu, I chose Library. Zotero is listed and has two folders: i6q25kt3.default and Profiles as well as profiles.ini
  • dstillman
    i6q25kt3.default should be within Profiles, not next to it. Is there a similar folder within Profiles?

    Move i6q25kt3.default into Profiles, and then try starting Zotero again.
  • vdavis6
    The Profiles folder was empty; I moved i6q25kt3.default to it and it appears I'm back in business! Thanks so much!
  • dstillman
    OK, great. Very odd that that would happen on its own, though. Any chance you moved that by mistake?
  • vdavis6
    It might have happened when I was following the directions for creating a back-up file to place on an external hard drive, although I did that about two weeks ago, and I didn't have a problem until this morning. That's the only time I recall doing anything that would have messed the files; I try to avoid that for just these reasons!
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