Updating Resulted in Irreversible Renaming of my Library (700 files)
I updated Zotero today. Previous settings were not transfered and without any prior warning, all my files were automatically renamed.
I have tried to rename attached files using the right-click menu but the file names do not change. I have also tried using the ZotFile add-on to rename files back to my own pattern, but to no avail.
Please advice
/Cogmind
I have tried to rename attached files using the right-click menu but the file names do not change. I have also tried using the ZotFile add-on to rename files back to my own pattern, but to no avail.
Please advice
/Cogmind
What version were you running before you updated? Was this just a minor update, or were you coming from Zotero 4?
Are you referring to stored files or linked files?
Did you have ZotFile installed when this happened? (I don't think ZotFile does any automatic renaming either, though.)
This happened during a minor update from 5.0.54 to 5.0.68. There was supposedly a fix according to the changelog in version 5.0.56 (https://www.zotero.org/support/changelog), but either the bug was reintroduced or it was never patched:
"When metadata was successfully retrieved for a linked PDF, the file was renamed regardless of the “Rename linked files” preference introduced in 5.0.61"
(I only installed Zotfile after the observation and I am refering to attached files.)
SOLUTION
Manage Attachments: Rename attachments
If you just mean that new files started to be renamed after you upgraded — perhaps you only checked new files, or looked at attachment titles in Zotero rather than the filenames for older files — then yes, that could happen if your settings were somehow reset. That wouldn't happen during a normal upgrade, so something would've had to have happened to the preference file. One is from Zotero and the other is from ZotFile.