Glitch: unable to open files by Anton Törnberg in v 6.0.23

aburston
edited March 29, 2023
Hello there, I am unable to open files by Anton Törnberg (report ID 179623257). This does not seem to be a problem with other authors, including those who have special characters in their name.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Open Zotero
2. Double click on any files by Anton Törberg. (Yes, the PDFs are downloaded and in the correct folder). Problem articles include:

Törnberg, Petter, and Anton Törnberg. 2022. “Inside a White Power Echo Chamber: Why Fringe Digital Spaces Are Polarizing Politics.” New Media & Society 146144482211229. doi: 10.1177/14614448221122915.

Wahlström, Mattias, and Anton Törnberg. 2021. “Social Media Mechanisms for Right-Wing Political Violence in the 21st Century: Discursive Opportunities, Group Dynamics, and Co-Ordination.” Terrorism and Political Violence 33(4):766–87. doi: 10.1080/09546553.2019.1586676.

3. Two finger click (on a mac) the file and select "show in folder." Try to open file from within folder the file doesn't open!

4. Copy the file and move it to my desktop, suddenly it opens!

5. Glitch persists with multiple PDF viewers including Preview and Acrobat. Is not ameliorated by restarting Zotero or restarting computer.
  • adamsmith
    Two finger click (on a mac) the file and select "show in folder." Try to open file from within folder the file doesn't open!
    at that point, though, Zotero is entirely out of the picture: you're just trying to open a file from Finder with Preview/Acrobat. I don't have a great idea what would cause this, security software seems unlikely, but that's probably still the first thing I'd explore.
  • aburston
    edited March 29, 2023
    I disabled my anti-virus software and the issue persists. I wonder if it has something to do with how Zotero codes storing this author's work (e.g. the filepath can't be read by the computer). Again, this issue only exists when I try to open this authors work when it is stored in the folders Zotero created.
  • adamsmith
    right, but the filepaths have exactly the same structure for all items and nothing to do with the author -- the author would only be in the filename, which is the same after moving the file to the desktop. What exactly happens when you try to open the file? Just nothing?
  • aburston
    Thanks Adamsmith. Yes, nothing happened after I opened the file in Zotero and after locating the file within Zotero. When copied to the desktop, the file opened correctly.

    UPDATE: by changing the PDF file names within Zotero to "file," the files opened correctly. I can only assume Zotero is glitching with some file names that have special characters in them.
  • adamsmith
    So far you only know that your file system isn't opening these files from the Zotero storage folder (which isn't otherwise controlled by Zotero in any way); it's still not at all clear that the problem is Zotero. It *could* be Zotero saving them incorrectly (though, again, that would beg the question why the same filename opens on the Desktop), or it could be that something on your system is preventing them from opening at that specific filepath. (FWIW, they do open for me, but that's on Windows)

    What's the filename for one of these?

    You could test what happens when you save a file with the same filename *to* one of the sub-folders of Zotero storage (e.g. using save as from acrobat or preview). If that doesn't open, the issue is definitely not on Zotero's end. If it does, we can look further.
  • aburston
    Hello there, I replicated the issue doing the following: downloading the files listed above using Zotero's plugin on firefox. The files would not open. All other files downloaded with this plugin open.

    Subsequently, I copied the filename and saved another PDF in a zotero folder. It opened without error.

    The error described above persists until i change the filename in zotero or copy the file outside of zotero. I understand that this is bizarre and it's certainly a niche issue.
  • aburston
    Could it be the filename Zotero assigns the PDF (which is different from the name of the file if i just download it myself)? Perhaps the character with the accent is unrecognizable to apple systems and the act of copying it to my desktop modifies this filename (replacing the incompatible character) to upload it to icloud or something like that?
  • adamsmith
    I'd want someone with a Mac to test this on a different machine -- since I can't reproduce this, it's just guessing on my part.
  • enozkan
    On an up-to-date Mac (M1), I can't reproduce it either. Getting the item+pdf via DOI. PDF opens fine whichever way I open it.

    I vaguely remember Dropbox not liking accented characters from Zotero in filenames a long time ago. That has long been resolved now. But any chance you are syncing attachments/PDFs by symlinking to a Dropbox folder, or some other cloud folder?
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