Importing RIS from Mendeley

karishma
I'm having problems shifting from Mendeley to Zotero. Here is a sample of a RIS file I'm trying to import into Zotero from Mendeley (after using M's export function), giving me this: "An error occurred while trying to import the selected file. Please ensure that the file is valid and try again."

TY - JOUR
T1 - Metrics and Methodology for Sustainable Development 1
A1 - Bradley, Barbara R
Y1 - 2001///
JF - Sustainable Development
L1 - file:///C:/blahblah/Bradley - 2001 - Metrics and Methodology for Sustainable Development 1.pdf
ER -

I initially thought it might have something to do with the pdf linked to the reference. So I removed the L1 tag completely.

TY - JOUR
T1 - Metrics and Methodology for Sustainable Development 1
A1 - Bradley, Barbara R
Y1 - 2001///
JF - Sustainable Development
ER -

and got the same error. So now I have no idea what to do. Can anyone help? Ideally I would like to import the pdf files into Zotero as well!
  • ajlyon
    This really is odd. The underlying error is:(2)(+0000001): Translate: Translation using RIS failed:
    thrown exception => Invalid item type 'false' in ItemFields.getFieldIDFromTypeAndBase()
    url => /home/ajlyon/development/zotero/ristmp
    downloadAssociatedFiles => true
    automaticSnapshots => true

    @karishma: You can ignore the error here-- we'll figure out what's going on. I'm posting the error for the reference of other developers.
  • ajlyon
    When I remove the L1 field, it imports for me.
  • ajlyon
    What version of Firefox are you using?
  • karishma
    Its Firefox 3.6.13 and Zotero 2.0.9.

    I found what I was doing wrong: I was opening the RIS file in Microsoft Word to edit it. If I open it in Notepad, remove the L1 tag and then try an import, it works! I guess it must be something to do with Word.

    But that still means I need to go through all my references and manually remove the links one by one. Any ideas on a) how to save time and b) how to keep the pdfs linked to the reference? And thanks for responding so quickly, you guys are awesome!
  • ajlyon
    There is still a problem here-- I don't know why Zotero isn't picking up the PDFs correctly. Those paths are correct, right?
  • karishma
    Yup, just to re-check I copied the path and pasted it into mozilla, and the correct file opened up within mozilla. Dunno what's wrong.
  • karishma
    Just a thought: does Zotero have some sort of limit to how long a pdf file name can be? Because a bunch of my files have really long names (files have been named after the title of the journal article to make them easier to find).

    I'm testing this theory out with pdfs that have shorter file names, and Zotero seems to recognize them. Maybe that's the trick!??
  • adamsmith
    I think it might be the total length of the file path (which tends to be quite long in Windows) If you have all files in one folder you could try moving that do a lower level directory.
    Another thought would be empty spaces in file names - that's sometimes an issue, though it shouldn't be.
  • ajlyon
    edited February 25, 2011
    To me, the odd thing is that I can replicate the import error here, running Linux and (approximately) Zotero 2.1. There's something wrong with our translator logic, not with the file handling.

    [Edit: That is, with the actual path C:\blahblahblah\..]
  • adamsmith
    in Zotero 2.0.9 the import just runs indefinitely if I add an existing file path to L1 - at least as far as I have been able to test.
  • ajlyon
    And there's our problem. I thought importing RIS with file attachments was tried-and-true for Endnote imports? Did I miss something here?
  • karishma
    Mendeley lets you rename the actual pdfs automatically, so I just renamed them all by year only (eg 2009.pdf) so that the file name is really really short. Some files import, others don't. If I pool them together into one RIS file, the entire operation fails and I get the same error message as before.
  • ajlyon
    Could you try exporting a couple failing ones in BibTeX and importing that?
  • karishma
    Ok BibTeX is really odd:

    If there is no note attached to a file on Mendeley: on importing into Zotero, I get the same error message, but then when I click ok, Zotero DOES import the reference... only without the pdf attached to it

    If there IS a note attached: I get the same error message and the reference does not import
  • karishma
    Sample 1 (no note):

    @article{Arrington1995,
    author = {Arrington, D.A.},
    file = {:C$\backslash$:/blah/1995(2).pdf:pdf},
    issn = {1526-100X},
    journal = {Restoration Ecology},
    number = {3},
    pages = {146},
    publisher = {John Wiley \& Sons},
    title = {{The restoration process}},
    url = {http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119255793/abstract},
    volume = {3},
    year = {1995}
    }

    Sample 2 (with note):

    @article{Aronson1993a,
    annote = {Note is here
    },
    author = {Aronson, J. and Floret, C. and Floc'h, E. and Ovalle, C. and Pontanier, R.},
    file = {:C$\backslash$:/blah/1993(2).pdf:pdf},
    issn = {1526-100X},
    journal = {Restoration ecology},
    number = {1},
    pages = {8--17},
    publisher = {John Wiley \& Sons},
    title = {{Restoration and rehabilitation of degraded ecosystems in arid and semi-arid lands. I. A view from the south}},
    url = {http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119311317/abstract},
    volume = {1},
    year = {1993}
    }
  • ajlyon
    No surprise that the BibTeX doesn't import the file-- Mendeley's export appears to be broken. They shouldn't be doing entity replacement inside the "file" field! Does that import for you if you replace the $\backslash$ with an actual backslash (\)?
  • adamsmith
    on Linux those work correctly for me - pdf and note included (with changed link to file of course).
  • karishma
    Tried all permutations, removed the :pdf at the end, used /, used \, I get the same error, it imports the reference but not the pdf.
  • karishma
    In other news, I randomly tried the pooled RIS file again containing all references, and it worked, importing notes, PDFs, everything onto Zotero! But I didn't do anything different this time, so I really don't know what's happening!
  • ajlyon
    See, we fixed it. :)

    I can still replicate issues, so I'll see if I can track this down anyway.
  • karishma
    Really? That was quick! Ok Zotero rocks. Thanks a lot guys!
  • ajlyon
    No, not really. I don't know why this started working for you -- there might have been underlying file access issues.

    But I agree that Zotero rocks.
  • karishma
    Oh well.

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