Sonny Software

I have Bookends watching a folder When I put a PDF in the folder, Bookends imports it, but multiple entries are created, one of which has the article attached. I think this only happens when the metadata is not found online, but not positive.

Is there a way to resolve this?

I'd Rebuild the library first.

I've had occasional reports like this but have never been able to reproduce it. If you can narrow it down to some specific set of circumstances I can try again. But given that I've tried in the past I'm not hopeful.

Jon
Sonny Software

Created a new library.
Configured the same watch folder, and started watching.
Dropped the article linked below in the folder.
Two entries were created.

https://web.stanford.edu/~mgolub/public ... as-ARN.pdf

It seems to be associated with the metadata not being found.

Please send me a PDF that causes this, then.

Jon
Sonny Software

There’s a link to it in my previous post.

I tried importing it from the watch folder twice, and as I suspected would happen, it was imported and attached to a single new record each time.

Jon
Sonny Software

Okay, let me know what other information I can provide, debug logs, etc.

Thanks

I need to be able to reproduce this. Obviously there's something local that's causing this (and by local I mean it's a condition on your machine that is causing this, otherwise I and everyone else would see it). What that is I can't say (another process interfering, something about your network connection, etc.). But if you can narrow it down and (perhaps) reproduce it on another Mac that would be a help. You can contact tech support directly with that information if you can isolate it.

Jon
Sonny Software

Jon knows this already as he directed me to this thread when I reported the problem, but you (JohnAtl) are not alone. I get the same problem. I have had it before on a different machine, and thought the problem was solved, but it started again recently.

As Jon's advice is that it must be something about our machines, and I haven't a clue where to start looking, next time I reboot I might see whether the problem happens before I start up any other apps. I run TextExpander 4 in the background, and Synology Drive is continuously backing up the Attachments folder, so I tried pausing Synology Drive (the more likely culprit because it affects the folders BE is using?) but it made no difference. What I found interesting what that when I loaded one of the free (pre-1920) articles from the Journal of Political Economy in JSTOR, it picked up reference details, but when I went for a 1932 one (requiring login), it failed to find metadata, and duplicated the entry. Same journal and source, but some have accessible metadata, others do not.

You should be able to rule out (or in) 3rd party processes by trying this after rebooting in Safe mode (Shift key held down).

Jon
Sonny Software

I will do this when I have finished work for the day. Thanks for the advice.

roger wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 10:28 am As Jon's advice is that it must be something about our machines, and I haven't a clue where to start looking

You shouldn't have to fix or find the source of these problems yourself, that's the developer's responsibility.

I finally resolved this problem and others I've reported by upgrading to Zotero.org.

Since refactoring (rewriting) the watch folder code in 13.5.2 I haven't had any reports of this issue, so it may be resolved for good. Since I was never able to reproduce it, and it only affected a small number of users, I can't be sure, but we'll keep an eye on it.

Jon
Sonny Software

I’ve had this with upgrading my wife from papers to bookends (zotero was trialled briefly but is like using PSPP instead of Stata - a nice idea but useless for us).

I think it’s because I’ve caused a duplicate import in reality - imported from papers and then because I’m nervous about missing papers in my wife’s library dropped them in for good measure. Now I have attached files without metadata and then the actual references as well...

Yes it will take time to sort but then her library will be nicely sorted as opposed to it’s current state!