errorunknownerror could not stat (NS_ERROR_GENERATE_FAILURE(44, 4350))

D_Pons
On Windows 11, at startup Zotero (9.0.5 and previous) throws error, and then either shuts down or freezes on green progress bar.

Database upgrade error Unknownerror: Could not stat ' [path]... zotero.sqlite.bak' (NS_ERROR_GENERATE_FAILURE(44, 4350))

It was working fine two weeks ago.

The path refers to a network drive, I believe locally cached. I can access the folder with windows file explorer. I have read-write access to the whole folder.

I tried upgrading Zotero from whatever version I had at two weeks ago, to 9.0.5. However the error persists.
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Move your Zotero data directory back to the local disk.
  • D_Pons
    Thanks for the suggestion. However, the data never were on the local disk. They are on the same locally mapped network drive as before (when Zotero was working). Even now the path reported by Zotero is perfectly valid when pasted into in Win Explorer, its just that Zotero has this strange error. Even if I were to move the data to a local drive, how would I update the path in Zotero given that it just crashes at startup? Uninstall and reinstall?

    Must Zotero data really be on local disk?

    As a new user, trying to migrate from Endnote (which doesn't have that requirement), that would be an unwelcome requirement. And not possible to comply with :( because at the university I can log onto any number of workstations, so it would not be possible to always access a local disk on one specific machine. I find it difficult to believe that Zotero would require data to be stored on a local machine, but perhaps that's just a fundamental limitation somehow?

    Any other suggested solutions?
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Network filesystems should generally work — we just can't provide support if they don't, which is why we can only recommend switching to the local disk.

    That error (ERROR_FILE_OFFLINE, 4350) means Windows reported the database backup file as "not currently available on this computer". That likely means your network drive is using Windows Offline Files, and Windows decided the cached copy of that file wasn't present, so Zotero couldn't read it during startup.

    We can make this specific file access — for automatic backup files — more resilient to an error, but if files within the data directory aren't being automatically made available locally, you're likely to just run into other problems later. The system should generally handle this automatically, so there may be some syncing problem with the drive that you'll need to ask your IT department about.

    (You can force Zotero to revert to looking in the default location by clearing the dataDir and useDataDir lines in prefs.js in the Zotero profile folder.)
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