10

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and I have installed Zotero adding the PPA, following the instructions in this page. It worked all well, but when I try to get any update, I get the following error message:

enter image description here

In order to "modify the Zotero program directory to be writable by your user account" I applied sudo chmod 707 zotero, as described here and, as far as can see from the screen shot below (which was generated by the command ls -lg /usr/bin), the changes took place successfully:

enter image description here

Is there anything wrong with this terminal output? Shouldn't I have reading, writing and execute (rwx) permissions for user, according to this output?

BCArg
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7 Answers7

6

With that command you only changed the permissions for the executable file, not for all the files the program uses (and probably needs to update).

I recommend that you chmod the /usr/bin/zotero file back to 755 and instead run the Zotero updater with sudo and it should have the rights needed to update itself.

EDIT: It is recommended to run sudo su to open up a root shell and then just run zotero as a command line command to open it with root rights. Directly running sudo zotero is not recommended because it uses your real home directory and you may end up with root-owned files in your home directory.

BeastOfCaerbannog
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Tim Schumacher
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4

I just came across this exactly same problem.

The following worked for me:

sudo chmod -R a+rwx /usr/bin/zotero && sudo chmod -R a+rwx /opt/zotero

Basically, this is giving Read+Write+Execute permissions to both folders.

FMM
  • 141
3

You'll want to also change the permissions of the /opt/zotero folder by running:

sudo chmod 707 /usr/bin/zotero && sudo chmod -R 707 /opt/zotero

Edoardo Pirovano
  • 131
1

I just resolved the issue by changing ownership of ~/zotero directory and successfully upgraded from Zotero Help>Check for Updates... link. For some reason, previous ownership was held by 501, which is held by OSX user.

sudo chown -R <username>:<username>  ~/zotero
saurabheights
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  • 1
  • 7
0

This depends on how (and where) did you install Zotero. I used the smathot/cogscinl repository to install mine (full installation instructions):

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:smathot/cogscinl

If this is your case, you will probably find your Zotero directory in /opt/zotero. You need to change the permission to the user that will update Zotero, basically this:

sudo chown USERNAME /opt/zotero
toto_tico
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0

If you try to run Zotero as a root user you get the following warning:

You appear to be running Zotero as root. This is insecure and may prevent Zotero from functioning when launched from your user account.

If you wish to install an automatic update, modify the Zotero program directory to be writable by your user account.

I think the proper way to solve this issue is simply following the instruction to modify the Zotero directory to be writable by your user account:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /usr/bin/zotero
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /opt/zotero
dsalaj
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-1

In Ubuntu 16.04, I did the following:

  1. In the terminal execute Zotero as root

    sudo zotero

  2. Enter the password and press Continue to the following message

Press Continue

  1. In Zotero, click on menu Help -> Check for update, install it and restart. That's it!
fjramireg
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