Syncing Won't Start

benjaminsiegel

Hi Zotero,

I've just purchased a 6 GB plan for Zotero (after realizing, the hard way, that Dropbox made for a poor home for the standalone storage and library). Yet I can't seem to get things to start syncing at all. I'm in India for a few months, so my internet connection is not fantastic, but it's not terrible, either -- other downloads max out at around 150 kbps.

When I click on "sync," most of the time, the green arrow spins without uploading anything. Sometimes, I get various error messages about being unable to connect to or find the server. I went into the debug log after enabling it, and found messages like this:

(5)(+0000001): SELECT syncState FROM itemAttachments WHERE itemID=?

(5)(+0000000): Binding parameter 1 of type int: 3731

(3)(+0000000): Remote file not found for item null/38DXDPB3

(5)(+0000000): SELECT value FROM settings WHERE setting='account' AND key='userID'

(3)(+0000064): HTTP POST md5=a8ac597dce8d17834df98d0a7db0ee34&filename=1960_Report%20of%20the%20Second%20Joint%20Indo-American%20Team%20on%20Agricultural%20Education%2C.pdf&filesize=3548748&mtime=1371736111000 to https://benjaminsiegel:********@api.zotero.org/users/256527/items/38DXDPB3/file?auth=1&iskey=1&version=1

(5)(+0000006): CookieSandbox: Not touching channel for api.zotero.org

(5)(+0000338): CookieSandbox: Not touching channel for api.zotero.org

(3)(+0000001): HTTP POST https://benjaminsiegel:********@api.zotero.org/users/256527/items/387H76EM/file?auth=1&iskey=1&version=1 succeeded with 200

(3)(+0000000): <?xml version="1.0"?>

(3)(+0000007): HTTP POST of RG 306, A1 1039, Box 16, India 1959 - 1962 (dragged).pdf to https://zoterofilestorage.s3.amazonaws.com/

(5)(+0000001): CookieSandbox: Being paranoid about channel for zoterofilestorage.s3.amazonaws.com

(5)(+0000001): CookieSandbox: Cleared cookies to be sent to zoterofilestorage.s3.amazonaws.com

(2)(+0000001): progressMax has changed from 0 to 12559036 for request '0/387H76EM'

I'd love to know what to do to get things set up properly for the first time!

Many thanks,
Ben

benjaminsiegel

Also, I don't know how relevant this is, but Zotero seems frequently crash-prone on my MacBook. I'd say it conks out and freezes entirely about once every twenty minutes or so, often when selecting a large number of citations or creating parent items for imported text files.

dstillman

Other people with slow network connections have reported problems with syncing, but it's not something we've been able to reproduce. I'd first try going to about:config from the Advanced pane of the preferences and adjusting extensions.zotero.sync.storage.maxDownloads and .maxUploads down to 1 for each and restarting Zotero.

benjaminsiegel

Hi Dan, thanks for this. I adjusted the about:config. Now, there are no error messages, but the green arrow continues to spin without doing anything. When I hover a cursor over the status bar, I get 0% progress, and 0/3200 files completed. I've let it sit a few hours, but nothing's changed. Any chance you know of next possible steps?

Thank you!

dstillman

You can try adjusting the other way instead—say, to 8 and 8—which might at least allow some files to go through. What's happening, I believe, is that on very slow connections certain file sync requests to Amazon are just hanging, and so Zotero never proceeds with additional uploads. I'll see if I can manage to reproduce this.

benjaminsiegel

Hi Dan,

I've given this a go for a few days, but every time I open Zotero now, it hangs.

Since I spent a lot of time abroad with similar bandwidth issues, I may need to cancel this hosting. Is this possible?

Many thanks,
Ben

dstillman

I don't handle subscriptions—you'd have to email storage@digitalscholar.org—but if you can wait another few days I'll try to artificially limit my connection speed and see if that triggers this. If I can reproduce this, I should be able to fix it.

benjaminsiegel

Hi Dan,

Happy to wait -- please let me know what happens. I'm happy to provide logs, etc., as needed, either here or via e-mail.

All best,
Ben

dstillman

OK—post again if you haven't heard from me in a few days, but I'll try to take a look at this in the next day or two.

And, of course, you can disable file syncing for the moment to avoid the hangs. If we do fix this, we can extend your storage subscription by a little to make up for lost time.

dstillman

I'm curious—if you're on a slow connection now (and it's relatively unmetered), if you go to http://www.speedtest.net/ and pick one of the Virginia endpoints outside Washington, D.C., what results do you get for ping, download, and upload?

dstillman

OK, could you install the latest 4.0 Branch dev XPI and submit a Debug ID for a sync that hangs (assuming you can still get it to happen in that build, which you probably will be able to)?

benjaminsiegel

Hi Dan,

Thanks a lot for this -- I'm sorry, missed these next messages! Just ran a speed test with one of the Reston, VA, servers and got this:

Ping: 864 ms / Download Speed: 1.18 Mpbs / Upload speed: 0.14 Mpbs

I'm going to try to figure out how to install the 4.0 Branch dev XPI in the next few minutes and will report back -- thanks!

Ben

dstillman

(You have to click through to the forums after each notification in order to get a notification for any following message.)

Let me know if you manage to generate output with the dev XPI. Be sure to install the 4.0 branch dev XPI, which is safe to use, and not the trunk XPI.