PDFs missing after migrating Zotero to a new computer
After moving my entire Zotero library to a new computer, I am repeatedly unable to locate PDFs that are supposedly attached to a given citation. I did not have a special designated folder on my old computer, so I believe that all these PDFs are saved in whatever sub-folders Zotero automatically creates. How do I go about finding them and updating my current library so that all the embedded notes are not lost?
But I'd guess that you actually did something wrong in the copy and simply synced to pull down your library from the server. You're at your storage quota online, so additional files wouldn't have been uploaded from the other computer.
See Transferring a Library to understand exactly what you need to copy from the other computer to get your full library.
Some of the PDFs are there, others are not.
It's possible that those files didn't upload to online storage, but that still doesn't explain why they wouldn't have migrated or wouldn't be findable after a manual move.
There's nothing else we can tell you here. Obviously if you place the exact same files in the exact correct place and start up Zotero, you're going to see the exact same thing.
I've tried searching when Zotero attempts to locate a PDF, but the PDF name doesn't auto-populate in the search box, and the search that pops up either doesn't include text in the document or the document itself isn't on the computer.
I will probably just try to re-copy the folder over and hope that works.
I'm not sure what you're saying re: searching. Zotero tells you the folder name and file name. You can look for that folder and/or file on this computer and on your old computer, and you should be able to figure out what happened. I'd recommend doing so, since there's a decent chance you copied the data directory to the wrong place and will just be wasting disk space if you don't move it or delete it. But you can of course just copy the data directory from the other computer again. If you follow the instructions precisely, you'll have the same library.
But again, it should be clear from the error message. Zotero will say exactly where it's looking.
@fazwardak thank you, this is helpful, and definitely a possibility. I don't *think* that it's an issue of manual attaching, because the documents I'm looking for were saved in the last year or two, and I haven't used the manual link in a long time.
If it is an issue of having linked to PDFs that are not stored in Zotero Library files, is there any way to systematically locate these, within Downloads or whatever folder they might be in? I'm assuming not and that I'd have to search one by one in my old computer.
There's nothing you would be doing for every file here. You either didn't copy the full data directory or you copied it to the wrong place. All you're doing is searching for a few of the PDFs — by 8-character folder name or part of the filename — to see if you accidentally placed them somewhere else. If you didn't, just try the copying from the other computer again. (And confirm that you actually have the files you think you have on the other computer.)