Item no longer exists,,,

poirmw

I am running into a bit of a problem. I am working on a relatively long document, 113 pages, single spaced, and when I attempt to enter a reference that is clearly in my db, I get the message "This item is no longer exists in your database...". But it does very much exists in the db. If I go to a new document and try to enter the same reference, I have no problems entering it. I've noticed something else. When I first begin work on the long document, I am no longer asked for the style, whereas I was always asked in the past. Does someone have an idea as to what is happening here? Should I shorten the document?

Thanks in advance.

M.W. Poirier

adamsmith

See here (my first post) on what's actually happening:
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/22552/this-item-does-no-longer-exists-in-your-database/
(the error you see doesn't refer to the item you're inserting, but to a different item)

and here for some of the scenarios on why it's happening
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/23368/this-item-no-longer-exists-in-your-zotero-database-/

For each document you only have to select the citation style once, so that's expected.

poirmw

You appear to be correct. What I did was press "No" in the frame that opens to tell me "the item is no longer in my database," which, by the way was initially 5 pages away from where I was trying to enter a reference, and the reference 5 pages on was definitely not in the db. All I want to know is whether anything was deleted as I moved on while pressing "No" each time to four or five more entries further down the line? BTW, when I got back to the start, i.e., the place where I was trying to make the initial entry, the entry in question was in its proper place. Thank you for your helpfulness, which is always to the point. MWP

adamsmith

yes - as the message says, pressing "no" will delete the citation - it might be tricky (unless you have a saved copy of the document) to find out now which citation you deleted.

poirmw

Strangely enough, pressing "No" does not appear to have deleted anything. Mind you, some of the references were written prior to my coming into contact with Zotero, so that may be the explanation, though curiously Zotero seems able to recognise these references as references. Go figure...?