When Do Notes Save?

johnsheffernan

I seem to be losing notes on occasion. I am wondering when notes are saved. Perhaps I am shutting down or exiting the browser before notes are saved.

arggem

Notes are save pretty much instantaneously... _as you type_ is what the documentation says.
https://www.zotero.org/support/notes

Rintze

That documentation is specific to the Zotero clients. johnsheffernan might be asking about the web interface of the online Zotero library.

adamsmith

I also thought this referred to the client (presumably the Firefox add-on). In the browser interface the note is added when you click "Add Note" - but that's pretty self-explanatory.
In the Firefox add-on - what arggem says. Saving is near instantaneous. There were a couple of reports of lost note content related to auto-syncing a while back, but I believe that was fixed. Which Zotero version?

gloryman

I'm using Zotero 4.0.12 and in particular the web interface plugin for Firefox 24.0. I'm having the same trouble with notes.

Many of my notes are not saving. It is true that the notes automatically save after about 1 second when I stop typing. But then when I resume typing in the same note, it never saves again.

To work around, I copy the note after I'm finished, click somewhere else, click back to my note (where now most of my text is missing), and paste the entire note back in to the note file. That seems to save it all.

adamsmith

(note that you're using the Firefox add-on, not the web interface. The web interface is online on zotero.org by clickon on "My Library".)

Obviously that workaround shouldn't be necessary, Dan may have follow-up questions, I'm not sure what he'd need for troubleshooting.

gloryman

Your correction of what I am using is accurate. I'm using the Firefox add-on, not navigating zotero.org. Thx.

dstillman

Can you provide a Debug ID that demonstrates this happening? Do this with a test note, and be sure to tell us the initial text that saved and the follow-up text that didn't save (since I'll need to look for it in the debug output).

Also, have you checked that the note hasn't actually been updated if you restart Firefox — that is, that this isn't simply a display issue?

gloryman

I'm afraid it was a temporary problem. Worked 45 minutes that way. Set my work aside, closed all open programs. I came back to the reference work and it has begun to save correctly. If I experience the problem again I'll follow the Debug instructions above.