I can index an item, but cannot rebuild the index

labutes
edited September 27, 2017
I upgraded to Zotero 5.0.21 a few days ago. Everything went well, except for the fact that I can't rebuild the index of PDF files. Everytime I select and right-click a PDF item, it is correctly indexed. But I can't rebuild the index with "Index unindexed items" or "Rebuild index" in "Preferences/Search/Rebuild index...". Nothing seems to happen after pressing these buttons. Indexing used to be automatic upon setting a "Link to a file..." That doesn't happen anymore. Would you help me? Thanks in advance.

PS. I forgot to say an important thing: I made another profile (for the first time) and in this (new) profile everything works as always. Is there something to do with the profile? pdf2text and pdf-info are installed in both profiles. I am reindexing the old profile (hoping it is indexing its 14,000 items in the backgrounds) just in case it has something to do with an old index being unable of having its unindexed items indexed in the new version of Zotero.
  • dstillman
    In general you don't really need to worry about those buttons. But linking to a PDF should cause it to be indexed, so if you're saying that's not happening, could you provide a Debug ID for linking to a PDF that contains embedded text that's not indexed?
  • labutes
    Yesterday I decided to rebuild the index entirely. Unfortunately, the computer went into hibernation during the night. Anyway, in the morning today I had 2863 indexed and 15822 unindexed items. Some twenty minutes later, I had 2911 and 15774. So, I think the index is being slowly rebuilt in the background. Zotero is a wonderful program; but a progression bar for this operation would be nice. Furthermore, I made today a link to a new PDF file, and, after more or less 10 seconds, I had it indexed, for my surprise. So I think the old index was somehow preventing me to index my new PDF files; or, maybe, the rebuilding of the index in the background was slowing down the indexing of new PDF files. Well, the spell is now broken, and that is the reason I suppose a debug ID would now be useless. Anyway, I thank you very much.
  • labutes
    edited October 3, 2017
    Well, here I am, again... I rebuilt the index entirely, it took me a couple of days with my fastest computer running nonstop! All old PDF files were indexed. But my problem is still the same: I cannot index a new PDF file using the button "Index unindexed items" in Preferences >> Search >> Rebuild Index... >> Index Unindexed Items. Let me first explain why I need this button: I work with Zotero in my two workplaces and at home. I always syncs Zotero without the PDF attachments. I have a pendrive with the structure of the attachment base directory, which is the same in all three computers. I always locally synced this pendrive with my computers base directories after commuting from home to work and vice-versa. After doing this and a subsequent Zotero sync, Zotero used to find the files, but they were always unindexed. So I had to use the button to "Index unindexed items". After a short period of disk activity, Zotero (which always seemed to be frozen) had all new files indexed. Now this doesn't happen anymore. Zotero remains inactive, and the number of indexed files remains the same. When I right-click over the new PDF files, however, they are indexed as usual, but I have to this now file by file, which is cumbersome. Interestingly, when I set a link to a PDF file (without "parent item"), the file is correctly indexed. Would anyone help me? I recorded and sent a Debug ID number D1814189892. Thank you!
  • labutes
    State of the affair: I had more or less 5000 unindexed files. I know that many of them, being PDF built on images, would never be indexed, but many others were normal indexable PDF files. So I uninstalled Zotero 5.0.21 and reinstalled Zotero 4.0.29. It warned me that the database required Zotero 5.0 or later. Thus, I replaced the 5.0 sqlite with a three-month-old Zotero 4.0 sqlite (the only one I had), and synced. Approximately 400 items (collected during these 3 months) were downloaded from Zotero server, and correctly indexed, after I pressed the button "Index unindexed items" in "Preferences". Now I have around 4600 unindexed files, which is correct. I cannot do the same with Zotero 5.0. Does anyone know why? Thanks in advance.
  • dstillman
    OK, this should be fixed in the latest 5.0 Beta, and the fix will be included in 5.0.23.
  • labutes
    Thank you for your help.
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