Sync error in Zotero 5 with Dropbox (Personal)

hi - not sure if this is the right place for this, if not please redirect. trying to streamline working across a PC desktop (running Windows 7 Enterprise with Zotero 5.0-beta.175+4edcf58 and Zotfile 5.0.0b3) and a Mac laptop (running Sierra 10.12.4 with Zotero 5.0-beta.185+32b1769 and Zotfile 5.0.0b3). I store linked attachments in Dropbox (with Data Directory set to default on both machines) which I recently had to make changes to because of the addition of a "Professional" folder, so that my Dropbox folder has been renamed "Dropbox (Personal)". Although this seemed to pose no problem on the Mac (attachment links to pdfs still worked fine) I went through and changed both the Linked Attachment Base Directory and the Zotfile "Location of Files" paths, on both machines, to reflect the new folder names. Everything working as normal on the Mac, but on the PC the links to all attachments are broken ("The attached file could not be found") even though Dropbox itself is synced and the files are all present in the Dropbox folder on the PC's hard drive. In what I assume is a related issue, Zotero syncing, while appearing to work for actual records, also brings up a 404 error, which I reported -
Report ID: 1919530731.

any assistance much appreciated.
  • For the 404, just upgrade to the latest beta version.

    For the broken links, can you provide a Debug ID for a file opening attempt that triggers that?
  • thanks @dstillman - actually the 404 seems to have resolved itself without update (which is a bit laborious on my university network PC but which I'll follow up anyway).

    for the links, I just ran a Debug Log - ID: D1598725985. I've noticed that files that remain in local zotero storage (because they haven't yet been renamed and moved to the 'library' folder by Zotfile) are still accessible from the PC, I assume because these files are uploaded directly to the online Zotero database. whereas the files that are linked via Zotfile renaming just display the file path - which has not updated to "Dropbox (Personal)" as described in my previous post, despite Sync Resets on both machines. For links that work on the Mac but not on the PC (the vast majority, I'd wager all linked attachments from Zotfile renaming), the file path is in the form /Users/benhjorth/Dropbox/zotero/library/Pahl/pahl (2012)... When I manually "locate" the file in the PC's local Dropbox (Personal) folder, the path updates to the form library/Pahl/pahl (2012)... Both PC and Mac are set to relative paths within the Linked Attachment Base Directory (C:\Users\bensefth\Dropbox (Personal)\zotero for PC; /Users/benhjorth/Dropbox (Personal)/zotero for Mac).

    I suppose I just need a way of resetting all the links in one hit (or batches) rather than having to manually locate each one.

    thanks tons
  • Attachment file '/Users/benhjorth/Dropbox/zotero/library/Pahl/pahl (2012)…' not found
    You can use a third-party tool like Zutilo to fix paths in batch, but Zotero will definitely do this for you if you do it properly. Basically the files need to exist (such that they're openable) within the current linked attachment base directory, and then you can change the base directory, move the files to a new location, and update the base directory.

    It's possible that ZotFile does something that interferes with the normal operation of that setting. I'm not sure if, when it creates linked attachments under the base directory, they're properly set as relative paths.

    In any case, the easiest fix at this point is probably to look at Zutilo (and then to be sure to clear and reset the base directory after updating the paths so that they're changed into relative paths instead of absolute paths, so you don't run into a similar problem in the future). If Zutilo doesn't work with 5.0 yet, you can copy (not move) the whole folder structure back to the old location, change the base directory setting to basically collect them (i.e., convert them to proper relative paths) at the old path, and then update the setting to point back to the new location.
  • Update: I've discovered that if I batch rename all the linked attachments on the Mac, and then sync, that fixes the issue on the PC after syncing there. I assume this is because the update of Dropbox (i.e. the division into "Personal" and "Professional" parent folders) screwed with the linked attachment file path syncing across machines, even though the Mac was able to handle it on its own. So I suppose this is a heads-up to anyone using Dropbox with Zotero - should hopefully be a one-time thing.

    Thanks again for your help, as always.
  • edited May 5, 2017
    Well, the point is that, when you have a linked attachment base directory properly set up, all that's syncing between computers is "attachments:relative/path/to/foo.pdf", not an absolute path. So if files are inaccessible somewhere, either the linked attachment base directory on that computer isn't set properly to reflect where the files are or the files weren't set as relative paths and are just absolute paths that don't match the current location of the files.
Sign In or Register to comment.