Synch error 1408832642

cpsyctc

I have been trying to work out why Zotero on my Windoze machine won't synch with Zotero on my Linux (Debian Wheezy) machine. Both are current versions of Zotero and appear to point to same account but Windoze machine says its synched but it isn't (nothing more recent than February) and I get this error when I attempt to address the synch errors reported on the Linux machine.

TIA,

Chris

dstillman

There are no Zotero errors in there. What's the actual message you're seeing?

cpsyctc

Ah. I was hoping that number would get you to some diagnostic information I can't see. That error, as I remember it now, some days later, came up on the Linux machine with a message about some problem wtih format information (it would really help if the error messages were permanent or logged somewhere in Zotero and above all, if we could copy them, I can't see that we can). That came up after a very common experience I've had over the last months which is Zotero reporting problems synching and reporting that many (hundreds, c.340 as I remember it this last time) had been modified both on the server and locally and this time I seemed to be able to ask Zotero to synch treating the local version as the correct one. It asked that twice and the second time it seems it succeeded in doing it (incidentally, I can see no way that I have contributed to the two getting out of synch and many of the entries it has showed when this has come up have been ones I entered ages ago and haven't changed anywhere recently). Oddly (perhaps you have magical powers!) the linux machine is no longer reporting any problems and the windoze one is " ..." Aarrgh, while I have been typing here, on the linux machine that message has disappeared on the Windoze one. It was something about the source folder being incorrect. What's nice though is that the Windoze machine is now showing the entries I've put in since February whereas earlier in the week it wasn't and would only give that error message (not the numbered one, the one about the source folder) but say that it had synched when it clearly hadn't.

I'm baffled. Great if you can advise me as I'd like to stick with an open source bibliography system but I worry a great deal about my huge database becoming corrupted.

dstillman

The error report often has additional information, but we still need the initial message, which doesn't always make it into the report. (And, at least on OS X, I'm able to copy from the error panel.)

Anyhow, we can't do much without precise error messages, but if it's working now I wouldn't worry too much about it. Generally speaking, if you have auto-sync enabled on both computers then conflicts should be pretty rare, though occasionally a syncing glitch in the current architecture can cause sync resets, which can trigger conflicts on old items in certain situations.

The next major version of Zotero coming later this year will be much better at avoiding conflicts from both causes.

cpsyctc

OK. I will cross my fingers and wait. Thanks.