Unable to open PDFs in entire Zotero library

itamshab
Recently all workstations in our institution migrated between domains.
Since then I am unable to open any PDF in my Zotero library.
The message I receive is:

The attached file could not be found at the following path:

C:\Users\username\Zotero\storage\KG6AZA8V\file_name.pdf

It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero, or, if the file was added on another computer, it may not yet have been synced to zotero.org.

If I click "Locate" the folder opens but it only contains a .zotero-ft-unprocessed file.

Syncing does not help.

Thanks!
  • dstillman
    It sounds like in the migration they just deleted all your Zotero files. Since you're at your Zotero Storage quota, you haven't been uploading additional files, so when you synced again post-migration to pull down your online library, it could only download the 300 MB of files that you had uploaded. Anything else would only be in your pre-migration data. Zotero would've been showing a warning icon about hitting the quota on every sync.

    I'm afraid you'll need to ask your IT department if they have a backup of your home directory from before the migration and see if they can restore the Zotero data directory for you.
  • itamshab
    Thanks for replying. I'm checking whether a backup was made.
    However, there are currently only 5 references with PDFs attached, could I be hitting the 300MB limit with only references and just 5 PDFs? I feel like the files are somewhere but Zotero doesn't know where to look for them.
  • dstillman
    However, there are currently only 5 references with PDFs attached
    I'm not sure why you think this. You have over 800 PDFs in your library, 167 of which have been uploaded to Zotero servers…
  • itamshab
    Correct, the PDFs exist in both the old and new directories (before and after migration).

    I think I know what the problem is but don't know how to correct it. For some reason the files are in different directories than where Zotero is looking for them.

    For example I get the above error that it's looking for a file in storage/TGI4AMXX but the file is actually in HTIYCP6H.

    Is there a way to rebind or relink the files to the correct locations?
  • dstillman
    edited November 13, 2023
    They're not in the wrong directory. Those are just different items — the second one is from one of your group libraries. Don't worry about the contents of the 'storage' folder — that's for Zotero to manage, and it's correct.

    I explained the problem above. You're at your file-storage quota, so only 300 MB of your files were ever uploaded, and your IT department didn't transfer your previous data directory. There's no other answer here.
  • dstillman
    edited November 13, 2023
    (Or they maybe transferred some of the directory, or an old backup? Neither TGI4AMXX nor HTIYCP6H was ever uploaded to our servers — again, because you're at your storage quota — so if you have that file locally you either re-located that on the new computer, which would've copied the file into the 'HTIYCP6H' folder, or they transferred only some part of the old directory. You might be able to tell from the creation date of the file.)
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