Upgrade StorageIssue with resyncing my local with my cloud Library
Hello fellow users of Zotero,
TLDR: Is there a way to have my local Library synced with my cloud Library successfully, thus without losing items?
Due to an error on my side, I noticed that my "local" Library differed from my "cloud" Library. Over time, I have tried to resync these two Libraries, but every time I lost to all my items. Therefore I found some time today finally to ask for support. I have the following issue only with my personal Library, but not with my Group Libraries (neither where I am a member in, nor own the Group Library myself). I have the Linux edition of Zotero 6.0.35 installed through an un-official copr repo on Fedora 40. In my collection I have over 40k items of all kind of types, and I use ZotFile to take care of their files.
Although I do no longer remember the cause of having my local and my cloud Libraries out of sync, and what I did next precisely, but I do remember doing the following afterwards to stop further damage: I choose to restore my local Library, by 1) deselecting "My Library & Feeds" under Preference > Sync > Settings > Data Syncing > Libraries to Sync, 2) restoring my local Library with a backup, and 3) deleting everything on my cloud Library. With the result that I had a local Library full with all of my items, and a cloud Library with no other items, than those in (my) group Libraries.
Later in order to repair this issue myself, I have tried to upload/sync my local Library with my cloud Library (by reselecting "My Library & Feeds" and let Zotero sync everything), but not all items got synced successfully. Although I started with a full local Library with all of my items, and an empty cloud Library, after syncing 'successfully', I ended up with both incomplete Libraries and lost items. In all cases that I have tried, Zotero "lost" both my collections (which is easy to restore), and to all of my items. With the result that both my local and cloud Libraries where synced with an incomplete Library. These lost items where and are in neither Bins. Thus I was not able to restore these lost items within Zotero itself, and therefore these items where not deleted, but lost.
However, I was and am still able to restore my local Library with local backups. Before I restored my local Library, I made sure that "My Libraries & Feeds" was still deselected, so that I did not ended up again with both local and cloud Library with lost items, with an incomplete collection of items. I restored my Library by 1) closing Zotero, 2) deleting the 'corrupted' Zotero folder in full (~/$user/Zotero), 3) copying the complete backup of the Zotero folder to the asinged localtion (~/$user/Zotero), and 4) restarting Zotero with a deselected "My Library & Feeds".
Recently, I tried again to sync my local with my cloud Library, by just reselecting "My Library & Feeds", but I ended up with a 'succesful' sync again, with an incomplete Library and lost items again. Thus I have now a synced incomplete Library (online) and a backed up complete Library (offline). However, instead of restoring my local Library again (see above), I came here to ask for support. Hopefully, we can work this issue out together, and I have Zotero synced my local with my cloud Library successfully. Again, I do have this problem only with my personal/local Library, but not to my (personal) Group Libraries. Although I mostly work on Fedora 40, I can try to reproduce this issue on Windows 11, if I can just replace my Fedora backup with the corresponding Zotero folder on my Windows 11 machine (dual boot).
While writing this, I came with two other ways I could restore my personal Library: Either doing this too on my Windows 11, and/or keep restoring my local Library from my backup while "My Library & Feeds" is selected until both my local and cloud Libraries are synced successfully.
Either way, is there a way to have my local Library synced with my cloud Library successfully, thus without losing items?
Thanks, 86ul
TLDR: Is there a way to have my local Library synced with my cloud Library successfully, thus without losing items?
Due to an error on my side, I noticed that my "local" Library differed from my "cloud" Library. Over time, I have tried to resync these two Libraries, but every time I lost to all my items. Therefore I found some time today finally to ask for support. I have the following issue only with my personal Library, but not with my Group Libraries (neither where I am a member in, nor own the Group Library myself). I have the Linux edition of Zotero 6.0.35 installed through an un-official copr repo on Fedora 40. In my collection I have over 40k items of all kind of types, and I use ZotFile to take care of their files.
Although I do no longer remember the cause of having my local and my cloud Libraries out of sync, and what I did next precisely, but I do remember doing the following afterwards to stop further damage: I choose to restore my local Library, by 1) deselecting "My Library & Feeds" under Preference > Sync > Settings > Data Syncing > Libraries to Sync, 2) restoring my local Library with a backup, and 3) deleting everything on my cloud Library. With the result that I had a local Library full with all of my items, and a cloud Library with no other items, than those in (my) group Libraries.
Later in order to repair this issue myself, I have tried to upload/sync my local Library with my cloud Library (by reselecting "My Library & Feeds" and let Zotero sync everything), but not all items got synced successfully. Although I started with a full local Library with all of my items, and an empty cloud Library, after syncing 'successfully', I ended up with both incomplete Libraries and lost items. In all cases that I have tried, Zotero "lost" both my collections (which is easy to restore), and to all of my items. With the result that both my local and cloud Libraries where synced with an incomplete Library. These lost items where and are in neither Bins. Thus I was not able to restore these lost items within Zotero itself, and therefore these items where not deleted, but lost.
However, I was and am still able to restore my local Library with local backups. Before I restored my local Library, I made sure that "My Libraries & Feeds" was still deselected, so that I did not ended up again with both local and cloud Library with lost items, with an incomplete collection of items. I restored my Library by 1) closing Zotero, 2) deleting the 'corrupted' Zotero folder in full (~/$user/Zotero), 3) copying the complete backup of the Zotero folder to the asinged localtion (~/$user/Zotero), and 4) restarting Zotero with a deselected "My Library & Feeds".
Recently, I tried again to sync my local with my cloud Library, by just reselecting "My Library & Feeds", but I ended up with a 'succesful' sync again, with an incomplete Library and lost items again. Thus I have now a synced incomplete Library (online) and a backed up complete Library (offline). However, instead of restoring my local Library again (see above), I came here to ask for support. Hopefully, we can work this issue out together, and I have Zotero synced my local with my cloud Library successfully. Again, I do have this problem only with my personal/local Library, but not to my (personal) Group Libraries. Although I mostly work on Fedora 40, I can try to reproduce this issue on Windows 11, if I can just replace my Fedora backup with the corresponding Zotero folder on my Windows 11 machine (dual boot).
While writing this, I came with two other ways I could restore my personal Library: Either doing this too on my Windows 11, and/or keep restoring my local Library from my backup while "My Library & Feeds" is selected until both my local and cloud Libraries are synced successfully.
Either way, is there a way to have my local Library synced with my cloud Library successfully, thus without losing items?
Thanks, 86ul
Syncing syncs changed items and deletions from both sides. If you restore from a backup but delete everything in the online library, it's just going to delete all previously uploaded data in your local library when you sync, because that's the point of syncing.
The "Libraries to Sync" dialog isn't at all relevant here and doesn't do anything like what you seem to want it to do. Just leave everything checked there and forget about it.
If you want to restore from a backup and overwrite the online library, we have very straightforward instructions for that:
https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data#restoring_your_zotero_data_from_a_backup_and_overwriting_synced_changes
In your case, for the last part you would use Replace Online Library.