Linux Zotero Update Linked Attachment Base Directory?

mtrg
Hello,

I'm using zotero 5.0.96.2 on Linux and I used to use zotfile + linked attachment base directory to sync to my Google Drive folder. I've now moved my Google Drive folder and updated both the zotero & the zotfile preferences to reflect this. However, whenever I try to open a file, it reflects the older Google Drive path and not the new one. Is there a way to update the file locations?

I've even removed .zotero and Zotero from ~/ to try to restart everything, but for some reason it still uses the old paths.

My other computer also now uses the linux's old Google Drive paths for the pdfs, which sounds like I've done something terribly wrong...
  • dstillman
    If it's using an old path, the Linked Attachment Base Directory wasn't set correctly before and the files are still using absolute paths.

    You'd need to temporarily move the files back to the previous location, set the base directory correctly so that the files become relative links, and then move the directory and change the setting to reflect the new location.
  • mtrg
    I ended up fixing it with Zutilo on my machine, but hopefully the problem won't propagate to other computers
  • glynn.nr
    Just for anyone with a similar problem, I did solve my issue, which was very similar to this one. I'm on a Mac (OS Monterey).

    My links had been absolute (something I didn't realize), but with the change that Google Drive made recently, using the "streaming" function has been difficult with my laptop and a sketchy internet connection. For some reason, the drive in my Base Directory changed from
    /Volumes/GoogleDrive/
    to
    /Volumes/GoogleDrive-105036812962751638541/
    I'm not sure why they were absolute instead of relative links in the first place (clearly didn't set this up correctly), but it meant that changing them from absolute to relative wouldn't be possible with dstillman's suggestion of using the "previous location" because that didn't exist and I can't figure out how to make it rename the GoogleDrive.

    This created lots of broken links and no way to just connect back to the old drive (because the old name doesn't exist and you can't just write a path down). I was able to use the Zutilo "modify attachment paths" (with replace partial path ticked) to replace just "Google Drive" with "GoogleDrive-105036812962751638541". This allowed me to change the absolute to relative links, and I have switched to DropBox for storing my PDFs.

    Here's to hoping the relative link stuff is set up properly and works from here on out.
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