Not syncing

jschwartz
I am unable to sync a library of about 4,500 references imported into Zotero from Endnote. I have tried about a dozen times over the last 2 weeks. Each time, Firefox will crash or I get an error that prompts me to restart Zotero. Any thoughts?
  • RintzeRintze
    What does the error say, exactly?
  • jschwartz
    I do not remember exactly, but it is usually about invalid response from Zotero server, Mozilla Firefox crashed and needs to restart, or Zotero has had an error and needs to restart.

    I've been trying to sync for the last 30 minutes... if/when this attempt fails, I can put up the exact wording.
  • dstillman
    edited December 12, 2011
    Your copy of Zotero is repeatedly trying to process the same download. Firefox may freeze while it does so, but be sure not to interrupt it by force-quitting Firefox, or else the same thing will just happen again.

    If Firefox is actually quitting by itself rather than freezing, it may help to restart your computer and make sure all other programs are closed before attempting the sync.

    In Zotero 3.0 there'll be a better indication that a sync process is ongoing.
  • jschwartz
    OK, thank you. I have not force-quit Firefox during my attempts to sync. I have restarted my computer half-a-dozen times while attempting the sync.

    I had to rebuild my library twice already. More than 2 weeks ago, attempts to sync seemed to corrupt my library. Links to attached PDFs were all being removed.


    My attempt to sync today has already been running for 5 hours so far. Currently it says 'processing updated data'. I have not yet seen a status bar. Do you have insight into why I am experiencing such problems?
  • dstillman
    Nothing of yours is currently processing on the server. Restart Firefox, start a sync, and post here when you do.

    The status bar will be in the next Zotero 3.0 beta.
  • jschwartz
    Restarted Firefox. Just clicked to start a sync.
  • dstillman
    OK, and there was another full download of yours on the server. What happened on your end?
  • jschwartz
    It is still hanging, with the spinning arrow. "Processing updated data".
  • dstillman
    Let it go.
  • dstillman
    Well, wait, the arrow is spinning? So Firefox isn't frozen? Can you provide a Report ID?
  • jschwartz
    375603429
  • dstillman
    edited December 12, 2011
    Can you provide a Debug ID for the first couple minutes of a sync attempt (after restarting Firefox)? You can temporarily disable auto-sync if necessary in the Sync pane of the Zotero preferences to make sure you capture the beginning.
  • jschwartz
    Debug ID: D1751363861

    Error in Zotero: Invalid response from Server
  • dstillman
    That's an extremely large upload your client is trying to make. Is your Zotero trash empty?
  • jschwartz
    I did not realize my trash would try to sync. I just deleted 14,000+ references. Now trying to upload ~4,500.
  • adamsmith
    [ceterum censeo - we need to add "empty your Zotero trash" to a highly visible place in sync troubleshooting documentation. It seems to solve about 3/4 of all syncing issues]
  • jschwartz
    After restarting the sync: D203915847
  • dstillman
    If you want, you can try the latest 3.0 Branch dev XPI, which might help. It should be pretty safe to use, but you should of course make sure that your backup of your Zotero data directory is up-to-date.

    If you do try the 3.0 branch dev XPI and still have trouble, provide a Debug ID from that.
  • jschwartz
    Before upgrading to 3.0 branch dev XPI... error: 1329751457
  • dstillman
    edited December 12, 2011
    ERROR: Expression tree is too large (maximum depth 1000)
    Hmm, there is an error (which we've never seen before) in that, likely still due to the huge number of deletions you had.

    I'll investigate that error, but I'd recommend upgrading to the dev XPI in any case, since that won't be fixed on 2.1.
  • jschwartz
    Upgraded to dev XPI -- here is the new error: 881828470
  • dstillman
    For "Invalid response from server" (as in that case) we need a Debug ID for the first couple minutes of the sync. Otherwise we need a Report ID.
  • jschwartz
    OK. Here is the new Debug ID captured during the first minutes of sync up to receiving an invalid response from the server.

    The Debug ID is D1727225801.
  • dstillman
    edited December 12, 2011
    Try again now. No Debug ID necessary.

    It might take some work to get this to go through—this is a huge upload.
  • jschwartz
    OK -- received "empty response from server".
  • jschwartz
    After two more 'empty responses', restarting Firefox, this is my new error:

    Uploaded data not well-formed (Report ID:1c21323194)

    Error ID#: 456609992
  • jschwartz
    Just tried again and received the 'empty response from server' error.

    Error ID#: 1539955982
  • dstillman
    Try again now.
  • dstillman
    And just to check, I assume you have local changes since the import that you don't want to lose? Otherwise, you could do a Restore from Zotero Server in the Sync->Reset pane of the Zotero prefs, reimport the file (once), and then sync without all the baggage from the deleted items.

    (To explain a bit, Zotero is still syncing the history of the deleted items—not the item details, but the identifiers of those items—so that, if you manually copied your Zotero database to another system between Zotero syncs, the deleted items would still be removed properly in the other database. That's a use case that we could consider just not supporting (and there are some other ways we could help large syncs go through), but that's the way things work currently.)
  • jschwartz
    Sorry for the late reply. I did not need to do any reset or restore. After several more attempts on the 13th, everything synced okay.
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