Source appears in multiple versions

I have nearly finished my paper and never had a problem with zotero but all of a sudden one source appears like this:
Maercker, A. (2013a). Posttraumatische Belastungsstörungen (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg).
Maercker, A. (2013b). Postraumatische Belastungsstörungen (Berlin Heidelberg: Springer).
Maercker, A. (2013c). Posttraumatische Belastungsstörungen (Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer).

The souce is listed only once in zotero, but appears like this in my bibliography and I cannot delete these multiple versions.
I have tried to:
- delete the source and add it again
- delete the bibliography and create a new one
- use a different citation style
- change every single reference in the text (it appers as (Springer, 2013a))
I hope anyone can help me.
  • edited August 26, 2016
    It appears as (Springer, 2013) in text and not (Maercker, 2013)? That seems strange. Very strange.

    More questions -

    What word processor are you using?

    What version and update of Zotero?

    What is the record type - book, journal article conf proceeding?

    The publisher location is listed two times in your first example. Is that correct?

    I am assuming that you have cited this reference 3 times in your manuscript and you don't mean that you cited the reference only once but it appears 3 times.

    Are you collaborating or sharing your document with anyone?

    Are you a member of a Zotero group? If yes, is the Maercker reference in the group library and in your own library?

    Have you worked on this manuscript on two or more computers? If so, when is the last time you synced?

    Are you certain that you only have one record in your library (not in the collection you are using) for this item? Could you have similar versions of this record in multiple collections? Check My Library not just a collection.

    Did you _ever_ have more than one version of this reference record in your Zotero library?

    Is there a version of this record in your Zotero trash?
  • Sorry, of course it appears as (Maercker, 2013).

    Answers:
    Word processor: Word 2007 on one, 2010 on the other laptop

    Version of Zotero: 4.0.29.11

    Record type: book

    The publisher location is listed two times in your first example. That is correct.

    I cited that one book six times and it appears like mentioned above in my bibliography.

    Collaborating, sharing or member of a group: no

    last time I synced: every time I open Zotero

    I do not use collections, only the library to avoid these kind of problems.

    Accidentally had two versions of this book in my library, deleted all of them and added the one book again, then emptied the trash.

    Trash: empty

    I hope I just made a stupid mistake and the problem is easy to solve. Thank you so much for your help.
  • Yes, deleting and re-importing duplicates would likely cause this (for future reference, you always want to use "Merge Duplicates" for this purpose).

    Do I understand correctly, though, that in the text you only have one version of the Maercker citation? Or do you also get a, b, and c in the text? (Use search to double-check).
  • edited August 27, 2016
    Nothing to merge. The book appears only once in my library, trash empty.
    In the text the citation appears five times as (Maercker, 2013a), once as (Maercker, 2013), in the bibliography as seen above. Nothing changes whatever I do. I am completely puzzled.
  • "The publisher location is listed two times in your first example. That is correct."
    This is, in my thinking, the strangest part of the issue.

    Are you sure that the item appears 5 times in text as Maercker, 2013a but in the reference list as 2013a, 2013b, 2013c etc.?

    This probably won't help but I think that you should check your Zotero database integrity.

    If you display the Zotero field codes in your document, are all codes for this citation alike?

    There is another thing to test but its usefulness is questionable. Open a new blank document. Add some text (it can be nonsense) and add your Maercker citation. Add more text with another (different) citation. Then, still more text and add the Maercker citation again. Create a bibliography. Do you have 2 Maercker listings?

    Sebastian, could this be related to references being stored in the document and held over from the time that there were 2 of the records (and one that was deleted from the library)?
  • Start by pressing the "Refresh" button in the Zotero World toolbar and make sure you're still not seeing any a/b/c for that citation in the text.
    If you display the Zotero field codes in your document, are all codes for this citation alike?
    this is the next thing to check. When you press alt+F9 (alt+FN+F9 on Mac) in Word, you will see the complete item information for every citation. The key part is something l"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/2433/items/S84BGBIU"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/2433/items/S84BGBIU"]

    Check if those URIs are the same for all citations of Maercker 2013. I'd expect that not to be the case.

    But just to underline this again:
    Accidentally had two versions of this book in my library, deleted all of them and added the one book again, then emptied the trash.
    This would give you exactly three versions of the item. If you inserted references to the first two into the text before deleting them in Zotero, they stay there as separate item, which would account for the a/b/c, though as DWL says, it's odd they wouldn't show up in the text.
  • I just tested this with Zotero 4.0x and Word within Windows. I inserted cites for two similar references that I created for this test, I deleted them from Zotero and added another of the same reference. When I cited the reference again there were indeed 3 a,b,c items in the bibliography but the a,b,c labels were also in-text.

    I haven't tested further. The question is, "how does maphi get rid of the unwanted extra versions of the entry?" Does selecting and deleting each field code and reinserting the codes from the one remaining Zotero item fix this?

    I'm still worried about the publisher location being included twice in the first appearance of the item in the bibliography. The only way I could make this happen was to enter the publisher location in the publisher field and in the location field.
  • I'm still worried about the publisher location being included twice in the first appearance of the item in the bibliography.
    Almost certainly just a data entry/import issue; don't worry about it at this point.

    In order to give instructions to fix this, we need to get answers to the above questions first. Basically it's going to come down to "delete and re-insert," but the details vary by exact scenario.
  • Refresh: Nothing happens

    The advice about the new word document: everything works perfectly, one version, correct citation. Then I tried the very same thing in my dissertation - everything stays messed up with the a, b, c versions.

    Examples of the "uris":

    "uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/zq0r0SSo/items/DCHUT62Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/zq0r0SSo/items/DCHUT62Q"]

    "uris":["http://zotero.org/users/1187214/items/XDFEQ3VD"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/1187214/items/XDFEQ3VD"]

    "uris":["http://zotero.org/users/1187214/items/XDFEQ3VD"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/1187214/items/XDFEQ3VD"]

    "uris":["http://zotero.org/users/1187214/items/7KNCGK3X"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/1187214/items/7KNCGK3X"]

    Thank you guys so much for your help!
  • So you can see there are three different URIs, so Zotero thinks those are three different items.

    Here's what I would do:
    In the new document where everything is OK, check out which of those URIs is inserted -- that's the item that's currently in Zotero.

    Then go through your document and replace all instances of the cite that do _not_ use that URI (i.e. if they're individual citations, delete them in Word and re-insert them with Zotero; if they're in a citation with other items, use edit citation and replace them there).

    Important: When you re-insert the citations (assuming you use the default insert citation dialog with the red frame), make sure you select the item from under "My Library" not from "Cited items". If you use the "classic" dialog, you'll do this right automatically.

    That should fix it.
  • edited August 29, 2016
    I swear I am not making this up:
    The flawless "uri"-version in the new document pops up as (Maercker, 2013a) in my dissertation.

    Also, I have already tried deleting every single of those citations every single day for the past two weeks, making sure to reinsert only the version from my library, not the "cited" options.
  • Not quite sure I understand -- where are the other URIs coming from then?
  • "...for the past 2 weeks..."

    As adamsmith said, there is a misunderstanding. We haven't been working with you for that long so lets begin again.

    Make a copy of the document as it exists now. Be sure to do nothing to the original document.
    Working with the copy (working draft) search for "Maercker". Every time you find the name, display the Zotero field codes and copy the code string to your clipboard and paste the string into a text editor (for later examination). Then delete the entire code string in your working draft. Move on to the next instance of Maercker add the second field code string to the list in your text editor document and repeat until you have found all of the items. Save this working draft so that your deletions are "locked in". Keep the document. Close and reopen the draft. Display the field codes in this working draft.

    Looking at the list of field codes, are the codes exactly the same?

    Using the list of field codes copy the first code to the clipboard, paste the code into the search field of the working draft. Perform the search. Did your search find anything? If so, closely examine the working draft to determine why your first search-and-delete was not a full success. Delete the errant search string and move on to the next string in your list. Search on that string, etc.

    Using the working draft, click the insert bibliography command. Is there a Maercker reference?

    Using the working draft, insert one Maercker citation at an appropriate place. Is the in-text citation correct? Refersh the bibliography. Is the Maercker reference correctly formatted.

    Insert the second Maercker citation in the text of your working draft. Is it correctly formatted and without the unwanted "a"?

    If this proceeded as I hope; your working draft can now be your primary document. Be sure to save this version and proceed writing your thesis using a copy. When I was crafting my dissertation I kept at least 40 iterations in case I needed to go back to an earlier version.

    Please, back up your work on an external drive. Large backup drives are available for less than US$100. Is your peace of mind and the hundreds of hours of research and writing not worth $100?
  • @DWL -- this sounds needlessly complicated?
    I'd rather understand what's going on and where the misunderstanding is before asking people to invest a lot of time. There is no scenario I'm aware of where replacing the citations shouldn't work.

    At this point I'm worried there's a breakdown in communication at some point and I want to understand where that is.

    (I think that because it is impossible that these three things are actually the case:
    1. There is no current duplicate in the library
    2. Every instance of the citation has been replaced with a copy from the library and
    3. The field codes for that item show different item.URIs)

    (Also, lack of back-ups wouldn't seem to be the problem here; as you know, I'm all for back-ups, but let's leave those out of this discussion to not complicate things any more).
  • edited August 29, 2016
    I fear that we are not understanding the full nature of Maphi's problems _and_ he or she is not understanding our instructions and questions.

    My thinking is that (in addition to other issues) there is likely to be a field code that didn't get deleted. I suspect that the first search step is likely to identify at least one dissimilar field code. If so there will not be a need for the second step. However, while my suggestion will be tedious, it should only require about 10 minutes.

    My step-by-step process and questions should provide the detail needed by someone who isn't familiar with working with Zotero (deleting records instead of merging) and looking at field codes in a document.

    I agree, you are correct that the 3 things cannot be the case. But you and I made suggestions that were likely misunderstood and inadequate to identify and fix the problem. Maphi has answered the questions but the answers seem impossible.

    I suspect that, if the _first_ citation is displayed as Maercker, 2013a, there is a problem with the document or with identifying all of the instances of the citation -- a missed citation early on. Thus, my detailed suggestion for a process of identification.

    I hope that you do not take offense at my persistence. At this point I will back-off from any further comments here -- two sets of suggestions are likely to be too confusing.

    I feel an obligation to warn anyone experiencing what seems to be operator errors of this magnitude that the value of external back-up as a safety net is far beyond the cost of a drive.

    edited to correct punctuation.
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