Syncing Problem

wakethetown
Today, I added several entries to my library. However, I noticed that the green syncing symbol keeps turning endlessly. My library has not synced. I logged into my Zotero account and these new entries are not listed on my online library.

When I scroll over the green symbol is says: "getting updated data from sync server."

Is the server down?

What should I do when this occurs?

Thanks,

Norman
  • dstillman
    You have a queued upload from three minutes ago, and you have items on the server from about an hour ago.
    What should I do when this occurs?
    Wait.
  • wakethetown
    What does queued upload mean? This is a "technical term" that new users such as me do not understand. Do I have to leave my library open while syncing? After a few minutes, most users will just close the program with the thought that it is not working correctly. Perhaps the server is down or something.

    BTW, I only had one updated item on the server of about 10 when I checked a few minutes ago.

    There needs to be more instructions and communication from the site that lets new users understand what is happening when syncing. An endlessly spinning wheel signals that something is wrong or not functioning properly. I only made a few changes this morning. This amount of data is trivial. It should update almost instantly in my opinion. If there is a cue it should tell us: "you are in the cue. your data will update within the next x minutes". or something like that.

    Thanks,

    Norman
  • wakethetown
    OK, I see that my online library did update. But why then is the arrow still spinning? Nothing would signal to me, the user, that the update was successful. No message of the sort: you are updated as of "3 May 2010 10:52 a.m." or something like that.

    the UI needs to provide the user with more information about current status.

    I am about to invest 100s of hours of data input into Zotero and I need to know that the sync function is robust and reliable.

    I am sure others are going through this very same calculation. Can Zotero be trusted to provide reliable syncing of data?

    Thanks,

    Norman
  • wakethetown
    Wait for how long?
  • dstillman
    It should say "Upload queued — waiting for sync server".

    In 2.0.3, it will tell you the time of the last sync even if a sync is ongoing, since it's almost never actually spinning "endlessly"—people with auto-sync on (such as you) usually just don't notice when one sync stops and another starts. The maximum wait time is almost always under an hour and, for the majority of uploads, it's a few seconds. It depends on the uploaded data size and the number of people syncing at a given time.

    We're still looking to speed up syncing significantly.
  • wakethetown
    Is it better to sync manually? Would you recommend that as a better option?

    The data size of my upload was very small--less than a dozen new entries. That's only a few kilobytes max.

    Since it's not the size of my update, it must be number of people syncing. There seems to be some capacity management issues here.

    Cheers,

    Norman
  • dstillman
    No. Auto-sync is the recommended sync method.

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