Synchronisation just not advancing. How to see its level of completion?

ludgerniemann

I use zotero in firefox and zotero storage and recently my library almost reached the online quota limit. When I pressed "purge storage" I was hoping to get options to select folders (this would be a feature request) but the whole online library was purged at once. Importantly, since I tried to restart synchronisation there has been almost now progress - in more than 2 weeks only 20MB were uploaded and whenever i press "sync with zotero server" nothing happens except that the time of the most recent (yet ineffective) synchronisation is shown.
I wish there was a way to see (another feature request..) the level of accomplished synchronisation. What to do?

adamsmith

http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/files_not_syncing
There is a progress bar during file sync and if things are working correctly a completed sync would include a completed file sync.

dstillman

"Purge Storage" isn't meant to be used in normal usage. (It's meant, for example, to allow you to clear uploaded files in your personal library if you're switching to using WebDAV file syncing, so that you can use your file storage quota for groups instead.) If you purge files online, the client doesn't reupload the files automatically unless you do Reset File Sync History, as explained in the page adamsmith linked to.

adamsmith

Dan - questions about "Purge" come up a fair amount. Could we add a warning, a better description, or at least a link to a more detailed explanation?

ludgerniemann

thanks Adam and Dan for the explanations re purging - I second very much the suggestion of adding some warning or info next to the respective button on the web - currently the "purge" icon is even larger than the one for "purchase extra storage"..

Regarding my query about sync progress: by adding multi MB files I managed to visualize the progress bar (which just wouldn´t show when adding small PDFs that were uploaded immediately). However, to know the overall status a nice feature would be some icon (cf the little arrow in dropbox folders) visualizing whether one´s library is fully synced.

Further, I wonder whether the root cause for my query may be inaccurate information about library sizes. On the web "current usage" just shows 50MB for my libraries that stood at 295 MB before the accidental purge. Does it take time for this information to be updated?

adamsmith

Re-read Dan's post. Zotero regards your library as fully synced at this time and the "overall sync status" is just not a concept that makes sense: as I say, Zotero doesn't do partial syncs. If you want to re-upload all your attachments to the server you need to manually trigger that via reset file sync history.