attached pdf not opening on second computer

aafgarci
Hi,

I'm having some problems with pdf files.
First, I subscribed for webDAV in mydisk.se and my pdf were uploaded correctly. But then I was unable to open them on a second computer (unable to acess the webDAV server).

I asked my university and they provided a webDAV account for me. I changed the configurations on Zotero on my main computer, and checked the webDAV - no error message.

On a second computer, same configurations, no error messages. The problem: when I try to open the pdf files, I'm getting the message "The attached file could not be found.
It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero."

Any ideas about how to correct this?

Thanks!
  • bp99
    exactly the same problem here.
    the storage server can be verified succesfully on both PCs, pdf attachments seem to get synched correctly from the first PC to webDAV (dav.humyo.com), but when syncing to the second PC the attachments aren't downloaded. All the info from zotero sync server is retrieved correctly, but when I click on the attachment the error message is "The attached file could not be found. It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero."
    The progress bar shows "Progress:0%, Downloads:0kB, Uploads:None" throughout the sync, but it does count from 1/703 files to 703/703 files.
    I'm using FirefoxPortable, could that be a problem in terms of storage directory?
  • ex1076
    I also have the same problem.
    I had been trying to use an mydisk.se as an online storage solution, but ran into to many problems. So I then switched to using my own desktop at work (which is left on permanently) as a WebDav server, with BarracudaDrive. Like afgarci and bp99 mentioned above, I have been able to verify the server address and my library seems to sync okay. However, when trying to access some pdfs, I get the error message "The attached file could not be found. It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero."

    I should say that this is not the case for all attachments, but certainly for the majority. Also, I am never really sure if zotero fully syncs: for instance, I would expect the 'storage' folders to be the same size on both machines, but currently, my primary 'storage' folder has 26418 files and is 1.20 GB big, whereas my secondary 'storage' folder only has 9101 files and is 625MB big. Is it possible that there is a limit on the size of libraries or number of attachments, when it comes to the syncing operation, or we overlooking something obvious?

    John
  • nate mildren
    I'm getting the same error message. I may have cause the problem by moving my Zotero directory on my computer...but I thought the sync should fix any links.
  • hannahgr
    I am also having this problem.
  • adamsmith
    edited November 11, 2009
    Hannah - I don't know how easy this is to solve, but if you want any chance of a solution you'll have to provide a lot more detail, as a point of reference follow the example of some of the people above.
    I addition, you should see if you can send an error report and post the ID here.
  • borgeh
    edited November 11, 2009
    I had these problems as well. I tried to reset the sync via the prefs pane, erase local and get all from zoteros server... to no avail. The sync button would stop many times, yet only a few percent had really been downloaded. The error button also showed some problems.
    I didn't think about noting them down, sorry debuggers.

    Then I tried to uninstall zotero, rename the complete zotero folder (keep it as a backup just in case), install zotero again and sync. It worked. I am not sure if installing again had anything to do with it.
  • hannahgr
    Adam - like the posters above, I also use a university-provided WebDAV service for my Zotero file syncing. When I verify the server, everything checks out okay on each computer I try. I am able to view citation information from my library from multiple computers. However, when I try to open PDF files from any computer except the computer the file was initially loaded onto, I receive the message "the attached file could not be found, it may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero". My file syncing is working correctly (or at least I am not receiving an error message), so I don't have an error report number to forward.

    I have been curious as to whether I need to set my file storage location to be the same on all of my computers (I use a network drive on my main computer), but in the Zotero documentation I have read, this doesn't appear to be the case, and I have been unable to map the storage drive to my WebDAV server on the other computers I am using (I can't get beyond my main directory in the navigation to a Zotero sub-directory). I am using Zotero 2.0b.7.4 in conjunction with Firefox 3.5.5.

    Any suggestions would be great, especially as I am theoretically the Zotero point person at my institution and other people have had similar troubles. Thanks.
  • dstillman
    Hannah (and others): If you can provide a Debug ID, from a computer where the files aren't being found, for both a regular sync and a sync after doing a Reset File Sync History from the Sync->Reset pane of the Zotero preferences, we may have a better idea of what's going on here. After performing each sync, try to open a file that's missing.

    (Reset File Sync History may also just fix the issue, but the debug output would be helpful.)
  • hannahgr
    Hi Dan, Here is my Debug ID from after a regular sync: D500229167
    After the Reset File Sync History: D1164225120

    Still couldn't open up PDFs not loaded on the local computer after the Reset File Sync History.

    Thanks for working on this.
  • dstillman
    From that debug output, it doesn't look like there are actually any files in your WebDAV folder. Have you looked in the folder on the server?

    Additionally, the server is returning a code indicating "success" after Zotero uploads a marker file at the end of the sync process, yet the file then doesn't exist when Zotero then checks for it. So it would appear there's a problem with your WebDAV server.
  • hannahgr
    There are lots of files in the folder on the server (.zip, .prop and then the .sqlite files). Do you mean PDF files or...?

    I definitely don't disagree that there might be a problem with my WebDAV server. I was talking with the IT folks about this earlier this week, and they aren't really familiar with Zotero. Could you give me any more specifics about the kinds of things that might be wrong with my WebDAV server that I can direct them a bit more in my conversation with them?
  • dstillman
    There should only be .zip and .prop files and a 'lastsync' file. It's not related to the problem, but there shouldn't be .sqlite or any other files unless you're somehow using the same directory as your data directory via a network share, which you shouldn't do.

    Basically, Zotero is PUTting a file, getting a success code (200), and then, when it then immediately tries to retrieve info on the file, the server is saying the file doesn't exist (error code 404).

    If there is in fact a 'lastsync' file and, say, a '3T6IXDPU.prop' file on the server, the server may not be configured to serve unknown file types, including the 'lastsync' file and the .prop files. That's pretty ridiculous, but we've had reports that IIS (i.e., Windows) servers can behave that way. So if that's the case, you'd have to talk to your server admins and ask them to allow those files.
  • hannahgr
    Okay, thank you much for your time. I will see what I can figure out from here.
  • hannahgr
    Hi Dan,
    Just an update. I worked with my IT folks, and it was a mime issue on their end. They added .prop to their mime types list, as well as an entry of "." to cover other unknown issues, and that solved the problem. Thanks for giving me the language to talk with them about this.
  • ritalencastre
    Hi,

    I also have a similar problem. I am using a group to share references and pdf w/ a colleague. I am storing data in Zotero server, but it does not save the pdf into the group library. I constantly get sync errors.

    I got a Debug ID: "The Debug ID is D2032237757"

    Hope you can help me.
  • dstillman
    New KB article for problems opening files on synced computers:

    http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/files_not_syncing

    Please start new threads for new issues.
This discussion has been closed.