sync error on removed entries/file attachments (can not removEmptyDir Javascript error)

olaf · May 10, 2022

I got various syncerrors that a file-dir can not removed because they are not empty. I get these errors on a win 10 machine that I did not sync for some weeks. Since the file/archive names are cryptical to me I can not see exactly which Zotero entries are affected, but I suppose it has to do with the fact, that in the time I did not sync the win10 machine I pureged a lot of zotero-entries/file attachments that I did not need anymore on my other mobile machine under Linux from zotero.
error-report ID: 352732151
Thanks for any help to sync correctly
Olaf

dstillman · May 10, 2022

[JavaScript Error: "Win error 145 during operation removeEmptyDir on file C:\Users\[…]\Zotero\storage\36RMKV9X (Das Verzeichnis ist nicht leer.

This could be due to security software preventing Zotero from writing to the disk, a problem with the permissions in the data directory, or having those PDFs open elsewhere on the system (though that usually results in a different error).

Since you deleted the files elsewhere, the sync is trying to delete them here and that's failing. That's not a problem in Zotero itself, so you'll need to figure out why Zotero isn't able to remove those folders.

olaf · May 10, 2022

Thanks for your quick reply. It's on a computer on my workplace so maybe it is a good bet, that some security restrictions from the admin-team is preventing Zotero from deleting.
Would it be a problem, when I try to remove the directories from my disk "manually" i.e. on OS level in the windows explorer? Or would this confuse Zotero?

olaf · May 10, 2022

N.B.
I am one of those users who need the "unlimited" storage package. So a complete new sync is not what I prefere...

dstillman · May 10, 2022

You can delete the folders that show up in the error report manually, but there's no guarantee that Zotero will be able to actually write the new files after — whatever's preventing the deletion might prevent that as well.