Sync Issues

MHFOT

I am having issues syncing my Library from my laptop to my PC. I have just downloaded Zotero to my PC and am wanting to access all items from my Library. I have followed the instructions under 'documentation'; however, no sync seems to occur. About 1/10th of the articles from my laptop are available on my PC. Any guidance is appreciated.

dstillman

See Changes Not Syncing and provide the requested information if you're still having trouble.

MHFOT

Thank you. The issue appears to be from the laptop - red icon appearing. It states: The creator name "Bailey, K.A. Beiter..... in one of your items is too long to sync. Shorten the field and sync again...." I clicked on the 'show item in Library' and an article appears that doesn't appear to match the reference listed. The article that appears is by authors Beshai et al 2023. I am unsure what I am supposed to shorten and if this is the correct file.

dstillman

Can you provide a Debug ID for getting the sync error and clicking the "Show Item in Library" button?

But you can just search for that name that's too long in the library root or the trash.

MHFOT

ID is D2130630370

I have searched for the name however no matching files come up

dstillman

The button is showing you the correct item. It's the last creator after the three legitimate ones, with a hundred or so names in an Editor field. I assume this is an APA PsycInfo export from Ovid, which we've heard produces invalid RIS data with these malformed names. You can delete that creator. You may need to do this on multiple items.

We'd like to fix this in some general way, but it's not totally clear what the best option is, and really APA PsycInfo/Ovid should fix their broken exports.

dstillman

Actually, there's a longer discussion here and a link to some code that you can use to delete all the creators like this:

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/431381/#Comment_431381

MHFOT

Great - thanks. I will work through all the ones that come up and hopefully the sync works after that

dstillman

Note my follow-up comment above. You can delete these all at once.

MHFOT

Thanks - but it may take me longer to work out how to use the code :) I don't have too many articles so will just work through them and see how I go

dstillman

You can just select any potentially affected items (e.g., sort by Date Added and select all the items you imported from the RIS file at that time), paste that code into Tools → Run JavaScript, and click Run.