[SOLVED] Database Upgrade Error/There was an error starting Zotero (Report ID: 930550427)

tleshuk
Hi all,

Strange problems with Zotero lately (I am running Crunchbang Linux 9.04). I did not update Zotero or Firefox or Linux or anything else, but when starting up Firefox yesterday Zotero would not load when it's icon was clicked (yellow exclamation mark triangle over logo). The error given was "Database Upgrade Error." I have not been able to fix the problem: I tried uninstalling all other addons, upgrading/reinstalling both Firefox and Zotero to latest editions, restarted computer (multiple times), deleted original Zotero database, deleted both compreg.dat and xpti.dat before restarting/reinstalling. Nothing worked.

I then tried installing the Zotero 2.1 beta, but that gave me the error reported in the title when it was trying to upgrade the database (I had replaced the original database). Now the error I get is "There was an error starting Zotero." Any help is greatly appreaciated.
  • adamsmith
    I'd give this a try
    https://api.zotero.org/utils/dbfix/
    no promises of course, but trying can't hurt.
  • tleshuk
    Thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately it does not seem to have worked. I installed Zotero 2.0.8, closed Firefox, replaced the sqlite file with the new one, but when I restarted Firefox I still got "Database Upgrade Error." I tried this same thing with the Zotero 2.1 beta and it gave the following error when attempting to upgrade the database as Firefox was starting (Report ID: 875301622), which looks the same as before (also "There was an error starting Zotero"):

    [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [mozIStorageConnection.rollbackTransaction]" nsresult: "0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/db.js :: anonymous :: line 525" data: no] [ERROR: cannot rollback - no transaction is active]
  • dstillman
    Are you able to generate a Debug ID for the startup using the "Enable after restart" option? You might not be able to, in which case, you can generate real-time debug output and e-mail it to support@zot....org.
  • tleshuk
    Thanks Dan, forgot about the error console. I was able to submit my error to Zotero Server from Preferences as Debug ID: D1182800791
  • dstillman
    disk I/O error
    Disable AppArmor?

    http://zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_troubleshooting#apparmor
  • tleshuk
    Does not seem to be AppArmor (was not even aware it existed before this). Entering "apparmor_status" to the terminal gave:

    apparmor module is loaded.
    7 profiles are loaded.
    7 profiles are in enforce mode.
    /usr/lib/connman/scripts/dhclient-script
    /sbin/dhclient3
    /usr/sbin/cupsd
    /usr/sbin/tcpdump
    /sbin/dhclient-script
    /usr/lib/cups/backend/cups-pdf
    /usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-dhcp-client.action
    0 profiles are in complain mode.
    2 processes have profiles defined.
    2 processes are in enforce mode :
    /usr/sbin/cupsd (3990)
    /sbin/dhclient3 (4201)
    0 processes are in complain mode.
    0 processes are unconfined but have a profile defined.

    Just to be sure, I uninstalled AppArmor completely and restarted the computer, but Zotero is still giving me the same error :s
  • dstillman
    Well, it's something on your system, since you're getting a disk i/o error. If not AppArmor, maybe SELinux or some other security software—or an actual disk error, but that's less likely.

    We can't really help you beyond that, though, since if Zotero can't access the disk, it won't work.
  • dstillman
    One more thing: you can check to see if there's a journal file in the Zotero data directory with Firefox closed. If so, delete it.
  • tleshuk
    Thanks again for all the help - unfortunately not the journal file, and I don't have any security software that I know of. Also the rest of my computer is working fine, so probably (hopefully) not a hard drive issue.

    I think you are correct in thinking that it's an issue with Firefox's read/write access - I have also had "Download Error -228" all day while trying to (re)install addons, and the Downloads window of Firefox does not seem to be working properly. The bizarre thing is that I do not remember changing or doing anything: suddenly Zotero isn't working and I get all these errors! Can you think of any other reason why or how Zotero and/or Firefox would be denied read/write access? Any help is still appreciated (I will be sure to update you if I get this working)
  • adamsmith
    did you check the permissions on the Firefox profile folder and its sub-folders?
  • tleshuk
    Solved! I honestly have not figured out what the issue was (likely relating to write permissions, although permissions for the profile folder looked fine when I checked), but things are working now again!

    What I did was completely uninstall anything relating to firefox, deleted all folders etc., did some autocleans, restarted, reinstalled firefox-mozilla-build, reinstalled Zotero 2.0.8 (without download error -228!), and then copied over my original zotero folder in place of the newly-created one. Everything looks good :) Unfortunately I lost all my firefox preferences, bookmarks, etc., but it is in a sense a small price to pay as I was prepared to reinstall my OS. Thank you both very much for all the help, hopefully if some other poor soul encounters this issue they will find a less drastic/traumatic way of fixing it
  • tleshuk
    Just to follow up on this issue - I think I found out what the source of the problem was: my root partition was 100% full :) Once I cleared out some massive log files which were hogging the space, the rest of the error messages I was getting from Firefox disappeared. For the FAQ on "Download Error -228" on this site, it may be good to add a note about checking whether your root partition is full if you're on Linux...
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