Can't sync with mydisk.se (secure webdav)

Hi,
Service was working yesterday without any problem (that was the last time I used it). It is not working now, I'm getting an error message saying that server can't verify my username/password, however it is working fine through the web interface.

Is someone experiencing the same problem?

Regards,
Adrian
  • I just got this answer from mydisk.se support service. If you are having similar error, I encourage you to disable webdav synchronization until either zotero or mydisk.se can fix the problem.

    Regards,
    Adrian

    --- Start message from mydisk.se support ---
    We have had performance issues which seem to be related to the use of Zotero by some of our users. It seems like you are using an application which is trying to access files that don't exist on your account which is causing heavy traffic on mydisk.

    Here is one example from your account:
    [Mon Mar 02 12:30:27 2009] [error] [client 190.50.45.32] File does not exist: /var/www/amastronardi/zotero/TTK29JXS.prop

    We have made a temporary fix to protect our servers by locking webdav for the users creating this errors and you were one of them. We are working on identifying the cause of these issues...
    --- End of message from mydisk.se support ---
  • This could probably occur if you have a lot of attachments in your library with missing files. Zotero will currently check the storage server for those files on every sync, which would result in a lot of unnecessary requests. We'll see what we can do about this. Thanks.
  • I'm also using mydisk as the WebDav and yes, I have lots of attachments with missing files. I'm getting errors similar to the ones above. Hopefully mydisk finds a solution to this soon.
  • I had this problem yesterday, with mydisk.se locking my WebDAV access. But I have access back today, and my zotero storage sync is working again.
  • I have been trying to sync with mydisk.se. 'File storage is successfully set up' according to Zotero, but there seems to be 3 files that make the sync hang. I don't know what these are, I can only tell by hovering over the progress bar. Any ideas?

    Thanks.
  • I have got "The storage server did not accept the username and password you entered" for a couple of days now,and it makes me wonder if I can trust mydisk.se for the future.
    1. Does anyone know of a good alternative to mydisk?
    2. When will Zotero itself provide hosted storage (for a fee)? I imagine that this could be a source of income to Zotero as well as making it easier to start using the service.
  • Dear Zotero users

    We got many users from Zotero lately which is causing an excessive amount of errors on our servers, as mentioned by amastronardi, above.

    For this reason, we have decided lock MyDisk for users trying to connect with Zotero. Please send us an e-mail if you would like us to unlock your account in order to use MyDisk for what it is primarily meant to, such as easy file access, webpage publishing or displaying your photos.

    We are sorry for the inconvenience and hope that you still appreciate MyDisk for the service we are primarily supporting.

    Best regards
    MyDisk.se
  • Well, that's a pity. Back to Dropbox for me.
  • edited March 13, 2009
    Bummer. Like CB, its back to DropBox for me as well.

    As an afterthought, if I can no longer access mydisk for Zotero file attachment sync, do I need to manually move all of the files out of mydisk or are the attachments also stored in my local Zotero storage folder?

    Cheers.
  • llmunro: your attachments ought to be intact locally (ie. they should have been mirrored to mydisk). Should be easy enough to check.

    I've bitten the bullet and am trying jungledisk for my zotero storage sync. Its webdav service seems to work reasonably well so far.
  • Sigh. I'm biting the bullet as well and trying out JungleDisk. Where do I find the URL for file sync?
  • I too had my mydisk.se webdav access revoked. I've found a great solution that works for me, and it should work for anybody else who already has their own web server or hosted web server (I use WestHost). Zotero user krueschan has put together a neat little Zotero-friendly PHP webdav server. It installs quite easily via FTP and I'm now syncing all my PDFs and snapshots to my own server. See the full details here: http://bit.ly/2mbOWb.
  • CB
    edited March 14, 2009

    Sigh. I'm biting the bullet as well and trying out JungleDisk. Where do I find the URL for file sync?
    There are two possibilities. If you're running the jungledisk client all the time, it provides a local URL. I think that's http://localhost:2667, but I couldn't get it to work with zotero.

    I don't want to run the jungledisk client all the time anyway, so I'm using their WebDAV server, for which the url is https://www.myjungledisk.com/[your jungledisk online disk name] (username/password details as per your jungledisk account). That's working well for me now.
  • I´m affected by the closedown of mydisk as well. If I switch now to gmx.mediacenter (or any other free webdav server) - how likely is it, that sooner or later the same problems will arise there? Can there be something changed in forthcomming versions of Zotero to avoid these kinds of problems? I don´t want to complain, Zotero is a fantastic free software. It´s just a naive question, since I don´t have a clue about the technical details causing the problems.
  • I queried the myDisk folks if they would allow wedDAV for paying customers and here was the response:

    "We had a discussion yesterday night about Zotero and how/if we should allow this for paying users.

    We decided that paying users will have access to Zotero, as long as the server can handle it safely.

    Meaning that, if you buy a 5GB account on myDisk.se we will allow you to use Zotero.
    How ever, if we encounter problems that we can not longer server Zotero because of to heavy loads, we will close the access to Zotero again, and your remaining money for the period will be refunded to you.

    According to the Zotero page, a 5GB account is €50 which is currently $67.39.
  • Glad to see there's a logical answer to my issues with myDisk - I thought my computer was going nuts. Can anyone tell me if there's any real need to get a WebDAV account if I am manually saving my PDFs to my flash drive? (i.e. what's the advantage there?)
  • WebDAV syncing supplies two things:
    • easy, automatic (and probably offsite) backup of your attachments
    • a way to easily use those attachments from multiple copies of zotero (if you use it on a work/school and/or home desktop and/or laptop, for example).
    If you are happy that your flash drive does enough of this for what you need, then you certainly don't need to use WebDAV
  • CB,

    Thanks much for being great and always answering my questions!
    :)

    Best,
    LLM
  • Great; Thanks :)
  • Wish I had found this sooner, I wasted my morning trying to get mydisk to sync with zotero - oh well.
  • edited May 27, 2009
    You can get now 2GB + 250MB for free from Dropbox (it's a campaign):
    https://www.getdropbox.com

    You can also use Dropbox as an unsecured webdav service, just define the storage server url as:
    http://www.box.net/dav/zotero/

    There is a piece of software you will have to install on your computer, though. But if you're using the dav connection, you can uninstall it afterwards.

    ----
    EDIT: as noksagt kindly informs in the response below, there's a mistake there in my message, box.net (free 1gb webdav) and dropbox (2gb + 250mb non-dav service) are two different service providers.

    The link above is a campaign referral link, true, with which one can get the 250mb extra space. My apologies, if anyone has been offended by that, you can most certainly get a dropbox without any referrals from http://www.dropbox.com
  • Please don't spam your referral links in so many threads. Note also that box.net is not the same service as dropbox.com.
  • Zotero 2.0b3 should generate considerably fewer WebDAV requests for missing attachments than 1.5. It now only attempts to download files if another copy of Zotero has updated the WebDAV store since the last attempt on the local computer.
  • To date (2013) there are timing issues with mydisk?
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