"Locate file" does not locate file on new computer

JPCrissien
Hello,

I recently got a new computer (Lenovo Yoga) and am switching from a Mac. I save all of my files on dropbox and link to the files in dropbox as well. After downloading Zotero on my new Windows laptop I try to open files and it does not find them (makes sense). But when I click on "locate files" it won't open a file search box to locate the files in dropbox. ??? Not sure where to start to fix this, any help is greatly appreciated.

Report ID: 1977770673
  • dstillman
    [JavaScript Error: "Component returned failure code: 0x80520001 (NS_ERROR_FILE_UNRECOGNIZED_PATH) [nsIFile.initWithPath]" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/file.js" line: 47}]
    [JavaScript Error: "Error: Unexpected value '.'" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/file.js" line: 56}]
    That looks like a bug — failure to open the Locate window given an absolute path from another platform — but you shouldn't be relocating linked files when switching between computers anyway.

    On the original computer, where the files are still accessible, you want to set an appropriate Linked Attachment Base Directory, which will change the files to use relative paths. Then sync, and sync the new computer, and then set the Linked Attachment Base Directory on the new computer so that it looks for the files relative to the directory you set.

    If you no longer have access to the original computer, the Zutilo plugin can batch-modify paths (e.g., to change them from "/Users/:user/Dropbox" to "C:\Users\:user\Dropbox").
  • JPCrissien
    Thanks for your reply and help with this issue. I just tried to change the base file in the ORIGINAL computer. Changed it to "/Users/shamps/Dropbox/Authorship/Source_Files". Did a sync on the original right after that. Then I tried to open one of the files on the original computer, which came up with the "file not found" dialogue box. I then located that file in the original. But when I try to open other files on the original they all still follow an old path (different folders).

    When I switched to the NEW computer, I created a base file path as "C:/Users/Jean/Dropbox/Authorship/Source_Files". Then did a sync there too. Did not find files again (consistently) but it's worth noting that the one I located in the ORIGINAL did work.

    It looks like I need to locate all files in the original? Then they will be right in both computers? Side question: what if I am getting rid of the old one in the near future? What should I do to save myself time in file recovery/linking?

    Thanks again!
  • dstillman
    I think you may be misunderstanding the base directory setting.

    If you weren't using that setting previously, it wouldn't have any effect on whether you can access files on the original computer — it just changes how paths are stored for files it can already find by absolute path within the base directory you choose. You should be able to access any files that you added on that computer unless you moved them outside of Zotero. If you moved them, you would need to either move the files back to where Zotero thinks they are or use Zutilo to batch-update the paths in Zotero so that the files are accessible. Once the files are accessible on that computer, you can use the base directory setting to change them to be relative paths.
  • JPCrissien
    I gotcha. I think what happened was that a lot of the linked files were wrong on the old computer too. I changed the folder names at certain times and then was adding from a work computer, which had strange file paths, etc. I never figured out how to fix them all with the base directory setting, it kept not finding files. So I just went through and batch corrected everything on the new computer by modifying paths to "attachments:file name" , which seems to have worked. I'll keep this in mind in the future.

    Thanks again for your help, even if I still don't understand entirely we got there!
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