Endnote on Networked Drives

A problem that I’ve just found the solution to is one where the Endnote library is stored on a network drive, and suddenly stops working.

This is not something I’ve seen or heard about very often, but it does happen. I’ve seen it maybe twice in the last year, and it has never happened to me, even though my libraries are on the university networked drive.

I think two things can happen. Firstly, you network drive can fill up, either because you add some more files (for example, saving the document), or because when Endnote talks back to the drive the network connection is briefly lost, and so is a bit of the library.

Either way, the next time Endnote open the library, you get a message informing you that the library is damaged and needs repairing.

Recovering the library is done from Tools | Recover Library. You need to select the original and the destination library, and Endnote attempts to copy one to the other.

This does work, but Endnote does not seem to like doing this with the libraries on a networked drive.

If you are in this position, take a back up, move the library (and the [libraryname].DATA folder) to a non-networked drive (say c:) and do the recover from there.

If nothing else can convince you to take regular back ups of your Endnote library, that should.