Missing references

bretsanner

Error Report ID: 390041403

Issue: About half of my references are missing from Zotero.

Steps for reproducing (1 of 2):
1. Open word and enter author of paper have previously saved to Zotero
2. Do not find the paper

Steps for reproducing (2 of 2):
1. Go to Zotero at bottom of Firefox
2. Type in author name
3. Fail to find article

I have tried restarting my computer and Zotero as well as downloading the latest version. I also searched the forums and could not find anything helpful. Do you mind giving me some help or pointing to a forum I missed that can help me?

Thank you!

Bret

adamsmith

Did you add those items on the same computer you're on right now?
If not, see
http://www.zotero.org/support/sync
or
http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/changes_not_syncing
depending on whether you've tried syncing or not.

bretsanner1

Hi Adam,

Thank you for the quick and helpful answer.

I added all of the references onto the computer I'm using now. Do you know why my references may have disappeared from my computer and where I could find them?

Bret

adamsmith

Items can't really disappear from Zotero unless you or someone else deletes them. If you tell us a little more about when and how you added them and what your Zotero setup is, we may be able to guess what happened.

bretsanner1

Hi Adam,

Thank you for your continued help.

It appears that the citations I added more recently, within the last year or so, are the ones that I can't find.

Zotero is integrated into my FireFox. In order to use it, I must have FireFox running on my computer.

Bret

bretsanner1

P.S. No one else has access to my Zotero and I don't know how I could have deleted them. I can't seem to find a way to pull up a log of what I've done on Zotero. Is there a way for me to pull that up and possibly undo a mistake I made? Thank you!

adamsmith

there's no revision history function or the like in Zotero, no. You could check your Zotero trash to be safe.

You never had Zotero standalone installed? Do you have any document in which you cited any of the items you're now missing with Zotero?

bretsanner1

Thank you for your continued help.

I checked my trash and the files aren't there.

I don't believe that I have ever installed the standalone Zotero and could not find it on my computer.

In terms of missing items I cited in a document, I'm a Ph.D. student and there are numerous articles I cited in my dissertation that are no longer in Zotero. That is actually how I learned that I had a problem. When I was writing my dissertation, Zotero became really slow but I assumed that it was just because I cited something like 300 papers. Does any of this help?

adamsmith

OK, open your dissertation, find a citation that's now missing. Then in Word, press alt+F9 to show the Zotero fieldcode and copy it here.

Then cite an item that is still in your library in a new word document and do the same. That should tell us something.

bretsanner1

Thank you again for working so hard to figure this out.

The source code from a cite within the body of my dissertation is below. When I hit alt+F9, the bibliography for most of my articles disappeared. Also, I had to do right click on mouse, "Edit field" and then copy from the "field code" bar to get the field code because I could not get the field code from the body of the article. I spent a long time trying to get the field code from the body of the article but could only get the citation. The field code in the body is longer. I could not find a zotero forum about this and am guessing there isn't a way to get it straight from the body. If I'm wrong, please don't hesitate to let me know. I really appreciate you helping me out and want to make you helping me as easy on you as possible. Please don't hesitate to let me know if there is something else you need that isn't here.

Missing article (in body citation: Dweck & Reppucci, 1973):
ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"286qc7f6cd","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Dweck & Reppucci, 1973)","plainCitation":"(Dweck & Reppucci, 1973)"},"citationItems":[{"id":5054,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/1475606/items/MXCX9M9C"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/1475606/items/MXCX9M9C"],"itemData":{"id":5054,"type":"article-journal","title":"Learned helplessness and reinforcement responsibility in children","container-title":"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology","page":"109-116"


Present article (in body citation: Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996):
ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"1vfhe23b7l","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996)","plainCitation":"(Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996)"},"citationItems":[{"id":721,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/1475606/items/C5HBC9BB"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/1475606/items/C5HBC9BB"],"itemData":{"id":721,"type":"article-journal","title":"Approach and avoidance achievement goals and intrinsic motivation: A mediational analysis","container-title":"Journal of Personality and S

adamsmith

Do you get anything at
http://zotero.org/users/1475606/items/MXCX9M9C
when pasting that in your browser?

If you paste: MXCX9M9C
into the quick search bar of Zotero in "All Fields and Tags" mode, do you get any results? (Try this also with C5HBC9BB, where you should definitely be getting the Elliot & Harackiewicz article, so you know you're doing this right).

@Dan - can you see any major deletions in the server log?

bretsanner1

Thank you for your quick progress on helping me. Y

When I put http://zotero.org/users/1475606/items/MXCX9M9C into my browser, I get a screen with the folders I use in Zotero on the left. At the bottom it says it is "showing 1 to 25 of 2,484." When I look at the Zotero bar at the bottom of Fire Fox, it says that I have 2,484 items and then increased 5,337 items. I'm almost positive that it said that I had around 1,700 yesterday.

Now to what you asked of me:
When I paste MXCX9M9, in the "All fields & tags" bar on top of Zotero in my Fire Fox, I don't get anything.
When I paste C5HBC9BB, in the "All fields & tags" bar on the top Zotero in my Fire Fox, I get the Elliot & Harachiewicz" article.

adamsmith

thanks -- let's see if Dan can see anything helpful in the server logs.

dstillman

Your Zotero is repeatedly trying to download all items since 2013-11-08. From your first error report, it looks like there may be some major issues in your data directory.

First, reset your translators from the Advanced → Files and Folders pane of the Zotero preferences, though that's likely unrelated.

Next provide a Debug ID for a sync attempt. Not needed. See below.

dstillman

But looks like you uploaded 1555 items yesterday. Based on the download logs, though, there's some very odd going on with your syncing.

Item C5HBC9BB exists on the server. MXCX9M9 does not, and there's no record of it ever existing. A bunch of items were deleted with the upload yesterday, but not MXCX9M9.

dstillman

Actually, I don't need a Debug ID. It looks like you resolved the download issue yesterday (a conflict that required manual resolution, I'd guess), hence the large upload. But you weren't syncing for a couple years before that, so if you created items somewhere else (or in a different copy of your database elsewhere on your computer), they wouldn't have ever synced and would now be missing.

bretsanner1

Hi Dan,

Thank you for your help.

I: pressed the gear, pressed preferences, pressed advanced, pressed file and folders and then pressed reset translators and lastly I pressed OK.

Thank you for explaining to me what is going on. I don't ever remember pressing anything that would have created a major upload yesterday.

I just looked through my files and I can't find my database(s) of references. Do you have any advice for finding it/ them?

Thank you!

dstillman

"Where did my items go?" says pretty much all we can say here. But if when you sort by Date Added in the middle pane you see a gap during which you know you were using Zotero and creating items, you were almost certainly using another copy of your database.

bretsanner1

Hi Dan,

Thank you for your continued support.

You are right; there is about a 7 month gap between entries in my Zotero.

I spent a fair amount of time trying to find the other directory but could not. Do you have any tips for tracking down a missing directory?

Thank you!

Bret

adamsmith

this is on Windows or Mac?

bretsanner1

Windows

adamsmith

search for zotero.sqlite, making sure (and this is important) to include hidden files and folders in the search:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/search-for-hidden-files-and-folders-in-windows-7/f47f5bf2-2678-4dae-bbb3-62e202b54b18

bretsanner1

Hi Adam,

Thank you for your continued help.

I found 5 files that way in: C:\Users\sannerb\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\k97tupdo.default\zotero, which is the same I get when I do the following in Zotero: 1. preferences, 2. advanced, 3. files and folders, and 4. show directory.

Does that mean that the references are likely deleted?

Bret