Ok, I installed Zotero on Ubuntu. Painfully inflexible (I tried to put the link in /usr/share/applications rather than .local/share/applications and IIRC it didn't work). Anyway... I used the recommended .local location and can get zotero to run, but updates barf. Something about a missing Release file, download not secure, update disabled. A PITA. Anyway, if the update function worked reliably, I'd be happy to keep updates automagic. But since it throws an error message at every update, I'm killing auto updates. As it happens, with the RELEASE file issue, it doesn't update automatically anyway, so all I'm doing is suppressing a repetitive and uninformative error flag.

You seem to be misunderstanding quite a lot a lot of this.

1) How the app launcher works on your system — the path you can use, etc. — has absolutely nothing to do with Zotero.

2) It sounds like you may be referring to a third-party package, not the tarball we make available from this site, in which case your question has nothing to do with Zotero's built-in updater. You'd have to ask the developer of the package you're using if you're having trouble with updates.

3) In general, no one is going to be able to help you unless you say what exactly you're doing, including the actual software/packages you're running and exact error messages you're receiving.

@WizardOfBoz: https://www.zotero.org/support/forum_guidelines#etiquette

If you're going to post here, skip the editorializing and just calmly explain the problem you're facing so that people can help you. And consider the possibility that you're just confused about something (like, say, about what software you're even using).

You're using a third-party package, not the official version of Zotero, and the update URL changed. Reinstall it from https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-deb. That's all.

>skip the editorializing
ok

>You're using a third-party package, not the official version of Zotero
I went to zotero.org
clicked the "Linux" download button
this downloaded Zotero-6.0.8_linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
then clicked "installation help" which landed me at
https://www.zotero.org/support/installation
I followed the instructions on www.zotero.org on that page

Is the download from zotero.org not the official version? Please let me know where I went wrong, or if there is a better way to do this.

Thanks for the notes.

The only version I've ever downloaded (to my knowledge) was the .tar.bz2 I got when I clicked the "download Zotero" on the zotero.org website. If there's another version on my machine I am unaware of it. Is there a way test if there is another (e.g. "not the version you're describing") version on my machine?

I just deleted all files that I could find that had anytying to do with Zotero, and then reinstalled the version I got when I clicked on the link. Symlinking the .desktop file to the usr/share/applications didn't seem to work (I may have morked up the ln commmand), but symlinking to the ~.local folder did. Anyway Zotero functions.

My software updater still throws a "Failed to download repository information" error. If I click "Ok" it seems to load other new updates. If I run apt-get update, I get the error
"Err:20 https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/zotero-deb ./ Release
404 Not Found [IP: 204.68.111.105 443]
Reading package lists... Done
E: The repository 'https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/zotero-deb ./ Release' no longer has a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details."

Maybe some simple questions will help
1) Is the link on zotero.org downloading an old or corrupted or "modified by a third party" version?
2) If so, do I need to download the tarball from somewhere else?
3) I followed the instructions on zotero.org but am still getting an error. Is there an alternate path to installing zotero that is better than what is on the site?
3) If I do get the proper version properly installed, does it allow updates via software updater in Ubuntu so that updater does not throw errors, or do I need to manually update Zotero and just live with an error from the updater program every few days?

1. No.
   
2. Definately no.
   
3. Define "better" (and you have two questions "3")
   
4. If by "proper" you mean "the official tarball", then no, the Ubuntu updater is not involved and you need to manually update Zotero, but "no" to the "and" part; just remove the deb repo.
   

You or someone else certainly did install the deb repo at some point. I introduced the sourceforge mirror because of reasons explained on the zotero-deb site, but the cure was worse than the ailment, so I retired the sourceforge mirror and am now hosting the debs on backblaze.

I don't recall doing a git, but it's possible that I did a sudo apt install zotero.

The installation of the deb repo would not have involved git, but you will have executed the curl -L https://...../install.sh | sudo bash at some point, otherwise sudo apt install zotero would just have said "Unable to locate package zotero".

If I'm grokking what you say

If you want to use the deb repo, you only have to do

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/retorquere/zotero-deb/master/install.sh | sudo bash

nothing else. The uninstall instructions are for when you want to use the tarball install instead.

It writes a 132 byte file. Of that 0.1 seconds it probably spent the bulk of the time downloading install.sh, since that is substantially bigger at 898 bytes :)