Rename from parent metadata bug

Heckscher
A minor but persistent annoyance: fairly often when I rename a PDF from parent metadata, it fails to rename and breaks the link to the item. This seems to happen mostly, but I think not always, when the PDF file is a read-only file. Sometimes I can then find the file with the "Show File" button. Sometimes that doesn't work; then I have to click on the PDF name, get an error message (saying the file cannot be found and must have been moved outside Zotero), click on the button for finding the file, and then it turns it up in a Zotero directory. From there I can get the name and reimport it to Zotero. But there should be a way of preventing that from happening in the first place, no?
  • adamsmith
    could you give some examples of file names? Which OS?
  • Heckscher
    edited February 11, 2010
    The OS is Windows XP. It just happened to me again, so I have details for that episode. The original filename was 287.pdf; the new filename, when I finally got it right, was
    C:\Data\Zotero\storage\R47NW8IR\The Struggle for the Soul of Health Insurance (Stone - 1993).pdf.

    As described before, I had to use "Locate" from the error message "the attached file could not be found"; that got me to the properly named file, but it was not connected to the item, so I had to go find it in a file manager and drag it back into the item. It was a read-only file.

    Thanks for your help.
  • adamsmith
    So that I understand this correctly - the file renaming works, but the "link" to the renamed file breaks? Bizarre.
  • Heckscher
    Yes, the renaming does seem to work -- a properly renamed file does appear when I follow through the "Locate" process, but it's no longer linked to the item. It may be only when the file is read-only -- I'm not certain whether there have been exceptions to that. I gather this is not an issue that has been noted before?
  • adamsmith
    I don't think so - if it's really a read-only file problem _and_ limited to Windows (works fine on Linux which means it probl works fine on Mac) I'm not super surprised this has never come up. Why all the read only files, btw.?

    The only similar thing I have seen is this:
    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/11037/cannot-find-file-after-renaming-from-parent-metadata
    but that doesn't seem to be related.

    You would do a service - and help to work towards a solution - if you could do some testing: Try out different type of filenames. Try if this occurs for all read-only pdfs or just for some (if the latter - can you discern a pattern?)
    Maybe Dan will have additional requests for troubleshooting.
  • Heckscher
    OK, I did some testing -- it does seem to be a problem with read-only files (I imported 4 read-only pdfs, tried to rename them, got the problem described before in all of them; then imported four that were not read-only, renamed them, had no problems.)

    The reason for the read-only files is that for some reason when I download pdfs from JStor, EBSCO, etc they come as read-only. I usually remember to change them, but occasionally I forget and then run into the problem I have described. If someone could explain how to avoid the read-only downloads it would be another way to solve the problem! I've tried, but failed.
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