[mlevin777]

> [QUOTE=whpalmer4;105212]Right, what I meant by that was what is the
> essential difference between a link that points at the right file, and works,
> and a link that points at the right file, but doesn't? When you go and
> locate the file, what is being done to fix it so it works the next time?

good question! I just hit "enter" (to select the file it already chose).

> Can you post the zsh snippet? Perhaps I've got some experimental data
> of my own to work with, and just haven't noticed :-)

for file in "$HOME/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus/OmniFocus.ofocus"/*.zip; do; unzip -p $file contents.xml | xmllint -format - | grep 'cell href='; done | sed 's/.*<cell href="//' | sed 's/".*//'

> The experiment I want to try is to use the open command in the Terminal
> with the file:// URL stashed in OF on one of the "bad" files. My suspicion
> is that it will fail. What I can't explain is what locating the file does to
> make it not fail the next time.

yeah, it's very weird - the file URL looks to me like it should definitely work...