Conflicts have suspended automatic syncing

sonitalele
I am trying to sync my Zotero library which also has 17 group libraries. These group libraries have been created by students belonging to 17 different team projects. Each team leader has shared their group library with me, their TA, so that I can monitor their group activity and help organize their references. This is the first time we are using Zotero for citation purposes in our class.
I also have some of my own citations in my personal library which I am trying to sync since the past 2 days. I have enabled automatic syncing for my Zotero Standalone application.
While syncing however, I get an error message (red exclamation symbol) near the sync symbol which says "Conflicts have suspended automatic syncing. Click the sync icon to resolve them."
On clicking on the sync icon, I get some conflicts (ranging from 50- 600) asking me to choose either a local or remote copy of a citation from some group library.
I have cancelled the sync process whenever I have got this message so far.
What advice do I need to give the students to avoid getting this message and resolve this issue.

Please advise. This error is preventing me from syncing my own research library with the server.

Thanks.
  • dstillman
    Can you generate a Debug ID for syncing, through the appearance of the conflict resolution window? Unless you've made changes locally to the group items, you shouldn't be seeing conflicts for them, although there are a few rare occasions where this can occur. I should be able to tell you more from the Debug ID.
  • sonitalele
    Hello Dan,

    Thanks. The Debug ID is D1604786765.
  • dstillman
    That's not a valid Debug ID (just copy and paste — don't try to retype it) but I found your report, and it doesn't cover what I asked for. It just has the very beginning of a sync. Be sure to review the instructions on the linked page.
  • sonitalele
    Hi Dan,
    Sorry about that. The application stopped responding and hence I typed out the Debug ID. Anyways, the new Debug ID is D1061150060.
    Thanks.
  • dstillman
    No, that also just shows a sync waiting for data from the server. The debug output has to actually be enabled during whatever it is you're trying to show us, in this case the appearance of the conflict resolution window.
  • sonitalele
    Hello Dan,

    Here is the Debug ID again D133505350. Hopefully, I got it right this time. Thanks for your patience with this.
  • sonitalele
    Hi Dan,

    An update to the Debug ID process.
    After sending you the above Debug ID, and disabling the Debug Output logging, Zotero Standalone displayed message that it is updating data from server.
    Then got a red exclamation mark near green sync icon saying the following:

    [JavaScript Error: "bad script XDR magic number"]

    version => 4.0.23, platform => Win32, oscpu => Windows NT 6.1; WOW64, locale => en-US, appName => Zotero, appVersion => 4.0.23, extensions => Zotero LibreOffice Integration (3.5.9.SA.4.0.23, extension), Zotero Word for Windows Integration (3.1.17.SA.4.0.23, extension), Google Update (1.3.25.11, plugin), Google Talk Plugin (5.38.6.0, plugin), Google Talk Plugin Video Renderer (5.38.6.0, plugin), Shockwave Flash (15.0.0.152, plugin), Box Edit (2.0.41.328, plugin), Adobe Acrobat (11.0.7.79, plugin), Silverlight Plug-In (5.1.30214.0, plugin), Java(TM) Platform SE 7 U45 (10.45.2.18, plugin), Java Deployment Toolkit 7.0.450.18 (10.45.2.18, plugin), iTunes Application Detector (1.0.1.1, plugin), Shockwave for Director (12.0.0.112, plugin), QuickTime Plug-in 7.6.9 (7.6.9.0, plugin), VLC Multimedia Plug-in (1.1.8.0, plugin), Microsoft Office 2010 (14.0.4761.1000, plugin), Microsoft Office 2010 (14.0.4730.1010, plugin)

    On hitting the "Report Error" button it gives the following Report ID

    Report ID 681627951

    Thought this additional information might be useful.
    Thanks.
  • dstillman
    OK, so, it looks like there was a period of time during which either you or the people making the changes weren't syncing. Your client then had to do a full sync (which generally shouldn't happen but can in a number of rare situations in the current sync architecture), and so all the remote changes since your last sync show as conflicts.

    The situation with regard to conflicts should be drastically improved with the new syncing architecture coming in the next major version of Zotero (which among other things will sync libraries individually), but I'm afraid your best bet for now is to choose the correct version (which in this case looks to be the remote version for pretty much everything, since all the local versions appear to be the original, unedited versions, mostly in a single library) and then make sure that everyone has auto-sync enabled and is resolving conflicts quickly. (When there's a conflict, you'll get the "Conflicts have suspended automatic syncing" message and will need to click the sync icon manually.)
  • sonitalele
    Thanks Dan! Appreciate your quick response.
    A quick question on choosing the correct version.
    Since I am just an observer of the group activity and am not supposed to make any changes in the citations for any of the 17 groups, will choosing the correct versions on my end interfere with what the group has decided already?
  • dstillman
    The conflict is between your local version and the later version that the group updated. If you didn't make any changes to the items you'll always want to choose the remote version. (You can likely see by looking at the Date Modified that the remote version is always later.) When you choose the remote version, nothing changes online — your local version is just updated to the remote version.
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