Large numbers of Sync conflicts?

NAUDataCensus

We're a group of 6 people sharing one Zotero account on 6 different computers, which was working fairly well until we started deleting duplicate records.

Suddenly, our computers are all reporting thousands of sync conflicts (mine is currently reporting almost 7,000 sync conflicts). The strange thing is that many of the sync conflicts don't appear to be actual conflicts -- the conflict resolution window will show the same identical line of text for both the remote and local items (the line of text is often from a note), and then ask us to choose between the two identical looking records. I do have a screenshot showing one of these seemingly identical errors, but I don't see any place to attach it.

I can't seem to get Zotero to give me an error code today (it just heads straight to the sync conflicts screen), but I did turn on the output logging and the Debug ID is D1162360948.

We have looked at this page -- https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/changes_not_syncing -- and we're sure we're all logging into the same account, and in my case there is a substantial difference between the number of records in the online version of Zotero and the number of records showing up on my computer. I'm afraid we've all done some work since the sync conflicts started, so we now have 7 distinct copies of the database (the server plus the different computers).

I've asked the other 5 people to try checking the integrity of their Zotero databases to make sure that they have automatic syncing turned on, but we're not sure what else to do (other than picking one copy to run with and restoring either to or from the server, and then just re-doing all the other work we've done).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated -- thanks!

adamsmith

put the screenshot on a free image hosting site like imgur or dropbox and link to it.

NAUDataCensus

Thanks! Here's the link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wef3yv52e4uhk6l/Example%20of%20identical%20seeming%20sync%20conflict.PNG?dl=0

adamsmith

Dan will want to take a closer look at this, but my best guess would be incorrect system times: you may get sync conflicts if the computer time on one of the syncing computers is wrong. Certainly worth checking.

NAUDataCensus

Thanks -- we'll check the time on all of our computers!

If it helps, here's the debug from another one of our computers -- debug ID is D1184964295. And this is the text of the error message from that computer:

"Conflicts have suspended automatic syncing.

Click the sync icon to resolve them."

NAUDataCensus

So far, I've heard back from 4 out of 6 collaborators, who all say that the system date and time is correct on their computers.

We also commonly get another error, which I thought I'd include here just in case it's related to our syncing problems:

Error text "Invalid response from server.Please try again in a few minutes."
Report ID: 1248592503

dstillman

Yeah, system clock isn't the issue here. From the looks of it, someone merged many duplicate items without being fully in sync. It also looks like there've been a large number of full syncs from the account over the past few months, which is unusual. Those can happen automatically in some rare cases, but it's important to immediately resolve any conflicts that result from them (shown by a sync error icon), because otherwise they just keep happening and any local changes since the last complete sync just get added to the conflict list. Not resolving conflicts and continuing to work in Zotero would be pretty much the only way to end up with thousands of them.

All the changes are genuine conflicts — either changed metadata from duplicate merging (e.g., different "Library Catalog" values, which wouldn't happen any other way) or changed parent items (from child items being merged into duplicate parent items). So you could probably reduce the number of conflicts by pressing + to expand all parent items and then deleting some of the duplicate attachments and emptying the trash.

But to help you out, in the latest 4.0 Beta of Zotero for Firefox, I've added the long-desired ability to resolve all conflicts with the changes from one side. It comes with the caveat that it needs much better testing and might have not work right, but it seems to work for me. Even if it does work, it may not do what you want, because your conflicts are quite a mess — you might end up with child items on merged items in the trash, for example — so you'll want to inspect the results carefully.

Alternatively, you can use Restore to/from Server, but as you say you'll lose work you've done. If you make a backup of your Zotero data directory before doing this, you'll have the option of using the reset options from the backup if this doesn't do what you want.

Anyhow, the next major version of Zotero should be much better at avoiding conflicts in a number of ways, but the most important thing will always be to make sure you're fully in sync before making changes.

adamsmith

But to help you out, in the latest 4.0 Beta of Zotero for Firefox, I've added the long-desired ability to resolve all conflicts with the changes from one side.

excellent. Very happy to see this.

NAUDataCensus

Great -- thank you so much! This seems to be helping a lot.

I have gotten one error after using the "keep all local changes" option, which I thought you might be interested in:
Error message text = Linked item 7CTS938B doesn't exist in Zotero.Sync.Server.Data.xmlToTag()
Report ID = 1504495261.

dstillman

That'd be an error that would cause a full download, like I described above, but...you appear to have wiped your server library?

NAUDataCensus

Yes, I just noticed that myself -- Zotero was open on our group computer with a lot of sync conflicts when I sat down, so I just started syncing and chose to keep all local changes.

Then I got the error message, and then I noticed the server copy was gone. Since I didn't check the server copy before starting the the sync, I'm not sure if I deleted it just now or if it was gone before I sat down about half-an-hour ago.

Would now be a good time to use Restore To Server?

dstillman

Well, it looks like someone already tried Restore to Server, yesterday at 4:45 EDT, which is why the server library is empty — the request to clear all data went through, but the upload failed for being too large. You can try doing it again, but how many items (including child items) do you have in your local library? Is your trash empty?

NAUDataCensus

I just emptied the trash on the shared computer -- it had about 13,000 items in there.

The shared computer has 16252 parent items, and about 5000 of these items have 1 or more child items. I'm deleting some of the extraneous child records now (some have as 100+ child items that we don't need), then I'll try Restore to Server.

This shared computer isn't the one that already tried to do the Restore to Server -- I'm not sure how many items that computer has. That computer owner said "I did click Restore to Server and got no response in return. I waited ~3 hours before putting my computer to sleep."

dstillman

It's the total item count that's relevant. The linked page has instructions for determining that.

NAUDataCensus

I wasn't clear from the instructions whether there was a way to expand all of your child items at once? Since at least 5,000 of our items have child items, I didn't really want to expand them all by hand...

dstillman

To determine total items, including child attachments and notes, click an item and press the + (plus) key to expand all parent items before using Select All. You can press - (minus) afterward to collapse all items.

NAUDataCensus

I did see those instructions, but did not understand them, sorry. Nothing initially seemed to happen when I clicked plus -- but then the program thought for about 5 minutes and eventually expanded everything.

Total number of items = 32805

NAUDataCensus

The total number of items is down to about 22,000 (we deleted a bunch of child items). I've just tried Restore to Server, so we'll see what happens.

Would it be easier to avoid sync conflicts like this in the future if we turned it into a Group Library that we all contribute to, rather than all logging in with the same account?

dstillman

Would it be easier to avoid sync conflicts like this in the future if we turned it into a Group Library that we all contribute to, rather than all logging in with the same account?

That's recommended for other reasons — seeing who made changes, and letting people keep separate personal libraries — but no, that shouldn't make any difference for this.