"The attached file could not be found." error when trying to view newly attached snapshot

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V0M-3YB1TK0-F&_user=554534&_coverDate=01/01/2000&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000028338&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=554534&md5=bfa70eb54233e14cd7532da95d315463

Starting at the above ScienceDirect article, I clicked "PDF (188 K)" and waited for the PDF to load. After it loaded, I selected a corresponding Zotero item, then went to the "Attachments" pane, then chose "Add -> Take Snapshot of Current Page". A new attachment was added, as expected.

When I immediately clicked on the new attachment and pressed the "View Snapshot" button, a dialog box appeared saying "The attached file could not be found. It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero." One of the options was "Locate...". When I chose this option, the file (called "science", the same name as the Zotero attachment) was in the default folder of the "Browse for file" dialog box that appeared. I simply double clicked on the file, and the snapshot then loaded properly. The snapshot now loads properly each time.

I can replicate this error by deleting the snapshot and then repeating the above steps.
  • edited April 2, 2007
    I can replicate. The PDF is saved without an extension, but the snapshot entry has a ".pdf" extension. In addition to Andrew's work around, appending '.pdf' to the file will allow it to open.
  • I had a similar problem (same error message) but found that a number of folders in the zotero/storage directory were missing. I was able to recover these from a backup.
  • IEdwards: Not related to this (very old) thread. See http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4682/the-attached-file-could-not-be-found/ for a closer problem.
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