Missing tags

bakich

Hello!

I have a question regarding group library sync.

A couple of us are working on a group library - adding tags to references - and after sync some tags that one group member added to a group folder completely disappeared! To make this issue even more interesting, at first they did appear on other members pc, and then disappeared again, and now they don't exist even on the pc of the group member who added them! Can somebody help us?

dstillman

When did this happen, and would you mind providing an example tag? (You can email it to support@zotero.org, with a link to this thread, if you prefer.)

bakich

Thank you very much for your quick reply, I've sent an email to support@zotero.org!

dstillman

I can't tell you exactly what happened, and it's possible this was caused by a bug of some sort, but I think it's also possible this was due to human error. Versions of two of the tags you mentioned in your email were deleted in the last couple days, but other, slightly different versions of those tags still exist. For example, "1.1" was deleted yesterday, but there's a "1.1." remaining in the library, and all other tags of the same format have trailing periods. (You mentioned "1.3", but that doesn't exist and hasn't been deleted. A "1.3." still exists, however.) The word tag you mentioned was deleted a couple days ago, but a capitalized version of that word still exists as a tag. (Note that these are library-level deletions, not item-level deletions, which I'm not able to see.)

Generally speaking, there shouldn't really be any way for tags to disappear on their own, and I don't believe anyone else has ever reported that. It is possible for deleted tags to be restored when there's a sync conflict: if Person A adds/removes items to/from a tag on one computer and Person B adds/removes different items to/from the same tag before syncing down Person A's changes, then there'll be a conflict on that tag, and Zotero will play it safe and restore all linked items to the tag. But I don't believe it ever does the inverse and removes items from tags automatically.

bakich

Thank you for reply!

First, I have to apologize on an error I made - the tags I mentioned should have had a trailing period. And, yes, these tags exist in the whole group library, but not in all sub-collections where we are absolutely sure we have added them - we are sure in this because yesterday they appeared in the group library after sync and then disappeared again (before our eyes!).

We also taught that it was impossible for something like this to happen, because we had experience with sync conflict before, and we know that in that case Zotero merges all changes. However, this was not the case now, and we don't know what happened and how to prevent it in the future...

dstillman

And, yes, these tags exist in the whole group library, but not in all sub-collections where we are absolutely sure we have added them - we are sure in this because yesterday they appeared in the group library after sync and then disappeared again (before our eyes!).

Well, but what do you mean by that, exactly? Tags aren't added to collections. Are you saying that they were added to items within those collections? If so, can you provide (here or via email) the name of an item or two that should have a particular tag?

Did anyone in your group receive sync conflict messages in the last few days (even though sync conflicts shouldn't result in tag removals)?

Beyond that, I guess I would say to try to reproduce it again and let us know if you do, but otherwise just assume it was some extremely rare fluke that probably won't happen again. And though this definitely shouldn't result from sync conflicts, be sure that everyone in the group has auto-sync enabled to reduce the chance of conflicts.

bakich

Ok, tags aren't added to collections, but when you work in a sub-collection, you can see all the tags in that collection only in the "tag selector pane".

For example, this reference was tagged with "1.1." tag: Adams, R., & Boscarino, J. (2006). Predictors of PTSD and delayed PTSD after disaster: the impact of exposure and psychosocial resources. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 194(7), 485–493.

A group member who tagged the items in the sub-collection in question says that there was a sync error message, however, even after that message we could still see the tags he added - for a time.

We enabled auto-sync now, and hope that will prevent this from happening again...

dstillman

OK. Let us know if it happens again.

bakich

I will and thank you for your help!

bakich

Well, it happened again :/

My colleague and I are working on different sub-collections at the same time, and after auto-sync some of the tags he added were deleted. We really don't know what are we doing wrong...

dstillman

Had you both added/removed items to/from one of the affected tags? (Syncing currently considers tags to be independent objects, with items associated with them.) In other words, is the issue that the version of the tag (including its linked items) on your computer overwrote your colleague's version of the tag?

dstillman

And did you receive any sort of sync message/error this time?

dstillman

Actually, I might have just reproduced this during a sync conflict. There may be some situation in which it's not auto-merging tags properly during conflicts. Investigating further...

bakich

No, we haven't edited the same items, but we did receive this message: "One or more Zotero tags have been added to and/or removed from items on multiple computers since the last sync. The different sets of tags have been combined."

dstillman

Right, that's the message I'm referring to. My question was about editing the same tags between syncs (which includes changing their linked items), not the same items. (You should certainly be able to do so, but it looks like that's where this bug is.)

dstillman

OK, it looks like tag merging wasn't working properly. This should now be fixed in the latest 4.0 Branch dev XPI. If you're still both working on tags simultaneously, you can run that until 4.0.13 is out and then switch back.

bakich

Thank you very much, we hope this will resolve the issue!