EPUB Attachment Issue

ragarner
Problem: Clicking on an entry (either main entry or subentry/attachment directly) with an EPUB attachment leads to File Not Found/Locate dialogue

1. Attach New File (successful, listed as subentry/attachment)
2. Click on entry to open file; failure, with the following dialogue):

File Not Found

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 zotero.org.

[More Information] [Cancel] [Locate...]

3. Click Locate; file shows up in appropriate looking folder; click open; back to Zotero
4. Re-attempt #1, repeat cycle ad infinitum

Caveats:
1. Attempted with PDF; works fine, even on same entry where EPUB broken
2. Tried same workflow with Zotfile, same outcome
3. Tried to open file directly from folder into ereader: successful

Hypothesis:
Something is happening such that Zotero 5.0.22 does not recognize the attached and linked EPUB file ... possibly because it's an epub file?

Thank you for all your help in advance!

Zotero 5.0.22
Macbook Pro 10.13.1 Beta (17B25c)
  • smteinturs
    Hi,
    As far as I know, Zotero doesn't support Epub book format (to be confirmed by Big Bosses but I've never been able to manage my Epubs with Zotero).
    So a trick: I use Calibre to convert my Epub books into PDF, and then save them to Zotero as usual.
    Hopefully it'd help.
  • ragarner
    Thanks @smteinturs, that may be the case. But I had definitely been using it with EPUBs for awhile, and didn't have this problem at all before 5.0 (using Zotfile extension). So, it seems to have been able to have at least correctly linked to the file before, even if it doesn't have any native capacity to work on that file type (for instance, I attached PNGs, etc to entries fairly regularly, and they seem to work.

    But yeah, may definitely not be a thing. Sigh.
  • bwiernik
    It's definitely not a general issue. EPUB files work fine for me.

    If you click the Locate File button, does it take you to the folder containing the file?
  • ragarner
    Yes, it takes you to the container with the file, but if you click the file (which is there), you just start the process over again closing out of the dialogue.

    However, I am in the process of setting up a new computer right now. I'll see if it's being reproduced on my new machine, but it was doing the same thing on the old one as of Saturday.
  • bwiernik
    If you are having problems opening epub files from your operating system, that indicates it’s a problem with how the file type is being handled by your computer, not Zotero.
  • rensa
    edited January 11, 2018
    I'm also having trouble attaching EPUBs—if I drag one onto an item, expecting Zotfile to move and rename it, nothing happens (even if I add epub to the file types it ought to handle), nothing happens.

    More interestingly, if I manually select an item, choose 'Add Link to File...' and select the EPUB file, the Mac file dialog treats it like a folder, descending into its contents when I click 'Open' rather than selecting it.

    Example: https://imgur.com/hCu1nHE

    I understand that EPUBs are essentially ZIP files. Could the way macOS handles container file formats be stopping it from selecting EPUBs to attach?

    macOS 10.13.2
    Zotero 5.0.33
    Zotfile 5.0.6
  • dstillman
    edited January 11, 2018
    Officially, EPUBs are ZIP files, but some on macOS are indeed folders that the system treats as files (like .app packages, which are also just folders), and that's what you're seeing here. Since they're just folders under the hood, Zotero seems them as such, and you won't be able to import them.

    I would imagine it's trivial to convert between the two — it might be as simple as zipping the files within and giving the ZIP file an .epub extension — but I don't know why macOS uses the folder format, so I'm not sure what the consequences would be of converting them.
  • rensa
    edited January 11, 2018
    If look at the EPUB in Finder, it seems to be treated as a file: I can open the contents by right-clicking and selecting 'Show Package Contents', but it's not twirlable, and double-clicking opens it in the associated program. Zotero's file dialog seems to be another matter, though :/

    Turns out, I've already asked this question on another thread (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/5301/zotfile-advanced-pdf-management-for-zotero/p49) and had no luck :/
  • dstillman
    Anything that says "Show Package Contents" is a folder, not a file. Finder shows it as a file, but that's not what it is.
  • rensa
    FWIW, I recently switched from macOS to Windows, and I was able to add the same EPUBs (which had been sitting on Dropbox) to the Windows version of Zotero without a problem using ZotFile: I dragged them in and Zotfile moved them to my Papers folder (also on Dropbox) and renamed them. Double-clicking the entry in Zoter opens Edge, my default EPUB and PDF reader. So I think this is almost certainly down to the way macOS handles EPUBs.

    Not sure what would happen if I synced and reopened Zotero (with the attachments successfully built) on macOS again, though.
  • wahl
    Having the same issue when adding an EPUB attachment on a Mac. Already tried:
    1. standalone drag and drop
    2. drag and drop to parent item
    3. create parent item and add attachment
    4. add link to file on parent item

    Nothing works, nothing shows up.
    Report ID: 2106837743
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