Zotfile Renaming and Linking Not Functioning

maxpiano93
I have until now been able to import a new document to Zotero and have it renamed and linked by Zotfile to a Onedrive folder. This has been working smoothly, but today when I import a new pdf and click on Manage attachments -> Rename attachments, the grey Zotfile: Renamed Attachments box appears, but does not proceed further.

This seems similar to the problem pointed out here, however my folder is not password protected. https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/74915/zotfile-renaming-and-linking-not-functioning

Either way I have not made any changes to Zotero/ Zotfile settings or to the Onedrive folder.

I have already removed the Zotfile Add-in and newly downloaded and added it, but this did not help. On the other hand, the extract annotations feature of Zotfile continues working without problems.

Any ideas of how to fix this?
  • adamsmith
    You can't use ZotFile on top-level PDFs. They need to be attached to a parent item.
  • maxpiano93
    Thanks for your answer @adamsmith Indeed, the PDFs I'm trying to move are indexed to the parent item, from which the renaming should be retrieved by Zotfile.
  • notomlette
    edited January 14, 2021
    I would like to add that I am facing the same problem as @maxpiano93 . For about the last two days I have noticed that every time I click "attach new file" it prompts the normal message "Do you want to rename and attach/link the file 'file_name' to the currently selected Zotero item?" after which it gives me a grey box saying "ZotFile: New attachment(s) added" with nothing else in the box and the file still remains in the source folder without any attachment, relocation, or renaming. It's basically the exact interaction I receive when I try to relocate something that's currently open in a pdf viewer, except, in this case the file isn't open.

    Interestingly, if I click a pdf that is already attached in zotero and click the "rename attachment" option, zotfile will rename the pdf on the zotero client but the actual file itself will remain the same. I haven't changed any other settings except for a recent zotero update; I am now on version 5.0.95. Also, I am using it with Onedrive like @maxpiano93 . I checked my onedrive folders and for some reason they are set to "read only" but I am unsure if that would actually affect zotfile.

    If anyone has any tips I would gladly appreciate it because this has drastically changed my workflow.

  • qqbb
    I checked my onedrive folders and for some reason they are set to "read only"
    That could be why ZotFile is not working for you. It's easy to check.

    Create a temporary folder outside of your OneDrive, e.g., C:\Users\...\Downloads\tmp\. Set ZotFile's "Custom Location" setting to that path and check if "Manage Attachments" -> "Rename Attachments" works.

    For troubleshooting related ZotFile issues, see also here.
  • notomlette
    @qqbb thanks for the idea for troubleshooting. It seems like the problem was that it was set to read only because creating a new destination folder allowed the manage attachments function to work again. Onedrive is still being finicky (for some reason, even after unchecking the box that says read only and applying it to all subfolders, windows file explorer will still say it's read only) but I reset my zotfile's destination folder to my onedrive folder and it is working again.

    Thanks and hopefully the fix stays!
  • qqbb
    Onedrive is still being finicky
    Maybe some of this could be helpful:

    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/onedrive-for-business/sharepoint-online-onedrive-read-only-sync-error/m-p/484374

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/invalid-file-names-and-file-types-in-onedrive-and-sharepoint-64883a5d-228e-48f5-b3d2-eb39e07630fa?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us#librariesspecificcolumns

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/why-did-my-file-open-read-only-3ab4b792-da50-4b38-8628-14c64e1f1d15?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us
  • qjyap
    @maxpiano93

    For me, I found out that my pdf had parentheses i.e. ( ).
    Once I removed it from the parent item filename, Zotfile can proceed with the renaming.

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