Directory & Path wrong after update - how to correct?

Ananas80
Hello Forum,
your help would be much appreciated. After the changes with the update 5.x, something has happened to the path in which Zotero assumes my files (i.e., attachments, the pdf itself).
On HD, files are in E:\XX\YY\... [names of the different collections]
I use relative paths. In Zotero - preferences, I set: Base directory E:\XX\YY
I think it always worked that way. But files cannot be located. If I look, online, in the details of the attachments, the path is:
XX\AA\YY
I dont know how the AA got in there. But my real problem is: How to get it out? How cna I change the paths for roughly 1000 entries?
I also use Zotfile, if that is of any interest or help.

Thanks a lot!




  • bwiernik
    The Zutilo plugin has a feature to batch modify the base of linked item paths.
  • Ananas80
    Thank you - this seems to work. So, if anyone else has this problem after updating:
    1. install zutilo (for standalone)
    2. check in preferences: "show attachment path" and "modify attachment path"
    3. right click on parent item -> show attachment path -> copy part that you want to edit
    4. right click parent item -> modify attachment path. change the path.
    5. Details on how to change path depends on your setup, here is more info:
    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/64933/batching-editing-selected-file-links-with-zutilo
  • bidi
    This is exactly my problem too, but I seem to have stuffed things up :-(

    Using zutilo, I changed the attachment path to remove the unwanted AA mentioned above. That change seems to have worked, but Zotero still cannot find my attachments.

    In my local Zotero preferences my base directory is now set to E:\XX\YY and the actual attachment file is located at E:\XX\YY\ZZ\my.pdf. In the Zotero database the attachment location is recorded as \ZZ\my.pdf.

    I have almost certainly misunderstood how this works.

    Advice anyone?
  • dstillman
    In my local Zotero preferences my base directory is now set to E:\XX\YY and the actual attachment file is located at E:\XX\YY\ZZ\my.pdf. In the Zotero database the attachment location is recorded as \ZZ\my.pdf.
    That seems fine. What does the debug output show when you try to open the file?
  • bidi
    The "Attached file could not be found" dialog box appears.

    Not sure what 'debug' output means -- looking now for that ...
  • dstillman
    Help -> Debug Output Logging -> View Output
  • bidi
    Yep, got it. Here's what it says


    version => 5.0.26, platform => Win32, oscpu => Windows NT 10.0; WOW64, locale => en-US, appName => Zotero, appVersion => 5.0.26, extensions => ZotFile (5.0.6, extension), Zotero LibreOffice Integration (5.0.8.SA.5.0.26, extension), Zotero Word for Windows Integration (5.0.5.SA.5.0.26, extension), Zutilo Utility for Zotero (2.0.3, extension), Shockwave Flash (27.0.0.187, plugin)

    (2)(+0000000): Attachment file '\Time and Frequency\Lombardi_1999_19.pdf' not found

    (4)(+0003806): SELECT IA.itemID FROM itemAttachments IA NATURAL JOIN items I LEFT JOIN itemData ID ON (IA.itemID=ID.itemID AND fieldID=1) LEFT JOIN itemDataValues IDV ON (ID.valueID=IDV.valueID) WHERE parentItemID=? AND linkMode NOT IN (?) AND IA.itemID NOT IN (SELECT itemID FROM deletedItems) ORDER BY contentType='application/pdf' DESC, value=? DESC, dateAdded ASC [19, 3, 'https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Lombardi/publication/269464380_Frequency_Measurement/links/548c7a270cf2d1800d7dd570.pdf']

    (2)(+0000022): Attachment file '\Time and Frequency\Lombardi_1999_19.pdf' not found
  • bidi
    Clearly hasn't appended the local bit of the path
  • dstillman
    edited November 18, 2017
    A relative path needs to begin with 'attachments:', and it shouldn't have a leading slash.
  • bidi
    Ah ha, so it should look like this?

    'attachments:Time and Frequency\Lombardi_1999_19.pdf'

  • bidi
    Brilliant! that has fixed it. Thank you so much :-)
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