Upgrade Storageold files not sync'ing w/ new external library location
hello,
i moved my standalone library to a new external hard drive.
items created before the move to new hard drive are not sync'ing with their files (even though the files do exist on my external drive, there are too many thousands of them to re-sync each manually). items created after the move are sync'ed without issue, it seems.
how do i re-sync the de-sync'ed file-items?
thank you!
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by not "syncing with their files": the zotero item has a hollow blue circle in the "attachment" column (rather than a blue circle for items that are synced).
i get the following message when clicking on items with hollow blue circle:
"The attached file could not be found.
It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero, or, if the file was added on another computer, it may not yet have been synced to or from zotero.org."
If you can't figure that out, provide a debug ID for trying to open an attached file.
this is the debug output from trying to open an item
D1986582357
If you have a linked attachment base directory set in the Advanced → Files and Folders pane of the Zotero preferences, you may be able to just change that. Otherwise, the easiest option is to use Zutilo to correct the paths, and then set up the linked attachment base directory so this doesn't happen in the future (because the files will all be stored as relative paths). You can do fix this without Zutilo, but you have a bit less visibility into what you're doing.
zutilo downloaded but i couldn't figure out how to open it.
when i look at the debug output.. it seems that zotero standalone is still looking for the old file attachment along the old path (on the previous external hard drive), rather than updating the path for the old files to (the new hard drive) where i have moved the entire library.
To do it all in Zotero, you'd want to temporarily mount the old hard drive (if it's still available), set a linked attachment base directory (which will make all the paths relative to that directory), plug in the new hard drive, and then update the base directory to point to the same location on the new drive.
so, first i set the attachment base directory to the old drive?
what do you mean point to the "same location"? (won't it be a new location on a new drive?)
but the library still wouldn't work on the new drive after i updated the base directory to the equivalent position on this new drive.
thoughts?
im using stand alone -- do i need firefox to open zutilo? i get this message:
There is no application set to open the document “zutilo_utility_for_zotero-2.0.3-fx.xpi”.
(...that's after reading and searching for ways to do so on: https://github.com/willsALMANJ/Zutilo/blob/master/docs/USAGE.md)
/Volumes/2tb oore/DOCTORATE/ZOTERO/Zotero/Profiles/nem16z0a.default/zotero
the new path i want:
/Volumes/4tb oore/ZOTERO/Zotero/Profiles/nem16z0a.default/zotero
Note... when i artificially change the new path to look like the old path, it works (all files seem to appear linked and function as such). However, this is not an accurate naming system: the new drive is 4tb and my zotero is now post "doctorate".
So to clarify: By default, Zotero stores attachments in the storage folder in the data directory. If you do that, moving the data directory will keep attachments working. It appears your attachment are, instead, links to files outside Zotero. You may have set up Zotfile to do that or may have done that manually -- hard to tell. We'd need to know where some of these links point (and, if they are indeed in the storage folder, how that happened).
the linked files are stored in a folder right 'next door' (to the folder containing Zotero which contains Profiles folder):
/Volumes/2tb oore/DOCTORATE/ZOTERO/DANI ZOTERO
in that folder i have the author folders. (maybe i used zotfile to do this during my previous forum thread)
Then
- select one item where the PDF doesn't open
- right-click on it and select "Modify attachment Path"
- In the first popup that asks for the old partial path input
/Volumes/2tb oore/DOCTORATE/ZOTERO/
In the second popup asking for the replacement string use
/Volumes/4tb oore/ZOTERO/
if that works do so for all items with missing attachments.
You did have Zotfile set up to move & link files. You'll have to look through your old thread to replicate your set-up.
do i select "replicate all instances of partial path string"?
to do this for my entire library (>4k items in basic view) do i simply "select all" and do as one batch?
is having linked files stored in separate folder less efficient? i may have done this so that i could find files by naming convention...
Yes on doing this with select all.
Linked files have ups and downs -- it's not per se less efficient, no, but you need to pay attention to things like relative paths, they're not usable in groups, and they're not accessible (or backed up) by Zotero online.
thank you!
all of them seem to be in "storage" folder of old library (old hard drive).
do i try to move them with... zotfile? when i try to replicate my previous zotfile set up?
/Volumes/4tb oore/ZOTERO/Zotero/Profiles/nem16z0a.default/zotero
and would then probably want to use Zotero to move them.
Zutilo's "show path" keeps pointing to "storage" but then the file is found in some old folder (in an older version that may be missing annotations)... when i select it, the file then seems moved to the "storage" folder.
is this right?