Files missing from Zotero

Jack Davy
Been in the field on research and haven't used Zotero in a about six months. I came back to it today to find it missing from Firefox. Downloaded latest upgrade and it reappeared as if newly installed, without any files in it - should have been hundreds.

I then followed the instructions at https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data#where_did_my_items_go and https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/39860/lost-files/ but neither had any effect.

I can see all the PDFs etc in the storage file, but nothing is coming up on Zotero itself and the only files I have are

zotero.sqlite 996KB
zotero.sqlite.1.bak 1,596KB
zotero.sqlite.bak 996KB

Any help would be much appreciated - I have some material backed up elsewhere, but was using Zotero for my main bibliographic storage.

Thanks
Jack
  • adamsmith
    How many items should be in your database, roughly?
  • Jack Davy
    Not sure exactly, probably between 300-500?
  • adamsmith
    OK, all those sqlites seem too small then. You don't have your items synced, do you? I.e. you don't see them when clicking on "My Library" on this page?

    Where did you find the PDFs in your storage folder?
  • Jack Davy
    I guess they are synched, or at least have been at some point, when I click on my library here I see 235 entries - I thought it was bigger than that but I'll take it over nothing. Should I turn synching off (if so, how)?

    Do you mean where did I find them originally? Or where on my computer? If the latter, they were in the storage folder in the zotero folder inside a Firefox profile folder. I have two profile folders, but this is the only one with a Zotero file in it.
  • Jack Davy
    OK, I've worked out what you meant. Apologies for being obtuse. I am attempting to synch now, although I keep getting a big red exclamation mark.
  • adamsmith
    No, you should turn syncing _on_ -- make sure your username and password are in the sync preferences and automatic syncing is turned on. You should get your items back that way. If that's not all of them, we can have another look trying to track down your full database.
  • Jack Davy
    OK, it has worked now. Sorry for being a bit slow with this. Thanks for your help.
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