I can confirm this issue.

today I tried to move from Zotero for Firefox to Zotero Stand-Alone-Client (todays current version). I get the same output on my Ubuntu Gnome 16.04.3:

david@David-ubuntu:~/opt/Zotero$ ./zotero
console.error:
Message: Error: Error(s) encountered during statement execution: disk I/O error [QUERY: DROP TABLE IF EXISTS itemTypes] [PARAMS: ] [ERROR: disk I/O error]
Stack:
Error: Error(s) encountered during statement execution: disk I/O error [QUERY: DROP TABLE IF EXISTS itemTypes] [PARAMS: ] [ERROR: disk I/O error]
Zotero.DBConnection.prototype.queryAsync<@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/db.js:703:10
tryCatcher@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/util.js:16:16
module.exports/PromiseSpawn.prototype._promiseRejected@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/generators.js:106:18
module.exports/Promise.prototype._settlePromise@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/promise.js:574:17
module.exports/Promise.prototype._settlePromise0@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/promise.js:612:5
module.exports/Promise.prototype._settlePromises@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/promise.js:687:13
From previous event:
captureStackTrace@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/debuggability.js:826:23
CapturedTrace@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/debuggability.js:718:5
longStackTracesCaptureStackTrace@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/debuggability.js:397:19
module.exports/Promise.prototype._then@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/promise.js:231:9
module.exports/Promise.prototype._passThrough@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/finally.js:91:12
module.exports/Promise.prototype.finally@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/finally.js:100:12
PromiseSpawn@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/generators.js:36:25
module.exports/Promise.coroutine/<@resource://gre/modules/commonjs/toolkit/loader.js -> resource://zotero/bluebird/generators.js:197:21
Zotero.Schema</this.updateSchema</updated<@chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/schema.js:156:25
TaskImpl_run@resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm:319:42
TaskImpl@resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm:277:3
createAsyncFunction/asyncFunction@resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm:252:14
Task_spawn@resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm:166:12
ConnectionData.prototype<.executeTransaction/promise</transactionPromise<@resource://gre/modules/Sqlite.jsm:593:28
TaskImpl_run@resource://gre/modules/Task.jsm:319:42


Installierte Java-Version (apt list --installed):

openjdk-8-jdk/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 8u151-b12-0ubuntu0.16.04.2 amd64 [installiert]
openjdk-8-jdk-headless/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 8u151-b12-0ubuntu0.16.04.2 amd64 [Installiert,automatisch]
openjdk-8-jre/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 8u151-b12-0ubuntu0.16.04.2 amd64 [Installiert,automatisch]
openjdk-8-jre-headless/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 8u151-b12-0ubuntu0.16.04.2 amd64 [Installiert,automatisch]

SQLite (apt list --installed):
libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3/xenial,now 1.5.4-1build1 amd64 [Installiert,automatisch]
libdbd-sqlite3/xenial,now 0.9.0-3ubuntu2 amd64 [installiert]
libmono-sqlite4.0-cil/xenial,xenial,now 4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4 all [Installiert,automatisch]
libqt4-sql-sqlite/xenial,now 4:4.8.7+dfsg-5ubuntu2 amd64 [installiert]
libqt5sql5-sqlite/xenial-updates,now 5.5.1+dfsg-16ubuntu7.5 amd64 [Installiert,automatisch]
libsqlite3-0/xenial,now 3.11.0-1ubuntu1 amd64 [installiert]

My guess is that this is not a hardware issue but a filesystem problem. I'm using a BTRFS filesystem. I had a similar issue with ext4 and mariadb this week.

Regards David

@jenske: Are you referring to the Zotero program or something within Firefox?

If the former, see Reporting Startup Errors. If the latter, see A Unified Zotero Experience.