Cannot find linked files

[jhh931]

JabRef 5.1--2020-07-18--ee2c985
Windows 10 10.0 amd64
Java 14.0.2
The portable version.

Under the General tab, linked files are reported as 'cannot find' and attempting to open them has no effect.

In the GUI I see this:

The Bibtex file portion is

file = {:C:/Users/hogemajh/AppData/Local/My Local Documents/JEROENX/artikelen/2020/Addanki_2020.pdf:PDF},

And the file 'c:\Users\hogemajh\AppData\Local\My Local Documents\JEROENX\artikelen\2020\Addanki_2020.pdf' exists on my PC.

It's like this for all linked files; this issue did not occur in previous releases.

[AEgit]

Just an idea - could you link a file that is found in folder whose path does not contain spaces (in your example "My Local Documents" contains spaces)? I remember, that this caused some issues in the past, but I thought it had been fixed in the meantime.

[jhh931]

The problem persists for path+file names without spaces.

Also in the now released 5.1 (portable):
JabRef 5.1--2020-08-30--e023aa0
Windows 10 10.0 amd64
Java 14.0.2

[Siedlerchr]

Hm. Have you changed some fie directory settings? Normally JabRef should store the files as relative links.

[Santrace]

I had the same problem, without changing a file directory setting.

It was fixed just by adding the "main file directory" adress, in "Options" ; "Preferences" ; "File".
Now, I can open an article from this file or another.

Thank's for the help, @Siedlerchr .

[jhh931]

At some point I started using absolute file links in combination with leaving "main file directory" empty. This worked fine under 5.0, not under 5.1.

I now re-introduced a "main file directory" and did a manual serach & replace in my bib files.
With that the issue is solved on my end.

As a side note, I found out that the absolute paths still work when using this format:
file = {:c\:\\Users\\hogemajh\\AppData\\Local\\report.pdf:PDF},
instead of
file = {:C:/Users/hogemajh/AppData/report.pdf:PDF},

(appratently earlier versions of JabRef inserted the double \ wheras the current version inserts single /).