JavaScript Error: "'' is not a valid collection key" (error report id 1654001940)

danmackinlay · October 26, 2016

I guess I have some database corruption, since on Beta 5.0, syncing results in the aforementioned error.

This seems to be temporary so far. sync actually occurs despite the error, and restarting firefox solves the problem.

the full errors looks like this: (repeated for various item keys apart from 2CN2UGZS)

[JavaScript Error: "'' is not a valid collection key" {file: "chrome://zotero/content/xpcom/sync/syncEngine.js" line: 1036}]

[JavaScript Error: "Error for item 2CN2UGZS in My Library:

ZoteroObjectUploadError: '' is not a valid collection key"]

I would like to see what item 2CN2UGZS is, but I don't know how to find things by key in the library. There are no attachments by that key in the storage folder, so possibly this is to do with deleted references?

dstillman · October 26, 2016

Could you provide a Debug ID (different from a Report ID) for a sync that produces this error?

danmackinlay · October 31, 2016

Yes, I can; it took a while to recur.

Report ID 1840227377
DebugID D767633022

It seems to be related to made changes to my library from two different machines. AFAICT I have not changed the same records.

dstillman · October 31, 2016

Can you install the latest beta XPI (r71) and generate another Debug ID with that? (It won't fix the problem, but it might give us a little more info.)

Does this go away after restarting Zotero?

If not, can you also check your database integrity from the Advanced → Files and Folders pane of the Zotero preferences?

danmackinlay · October 31, 2016

Upgraded.

The errors goes away on restart. Next time it recurs I'll post a report.

dstillman · October 31, 2016

Hmm, OK, thanks — I'll see if I can figure out how this is happening.

danmackinlay · October 31, 2016

Awesome. To be clear, this appears to be cosmetic; I have detected no data loss.

danmackinlay · November 10, 2016

I resolved this problem by deleting zotero and reinstalling everything from the server.
The fresh library, which has not gone through the migration process, does not seem to produce the error. Also the sqlite file is much smaller, 255MB instead of 374MB (although this is possibly due to the fact that the older version has been through many different full-text-index settings.)

dstillman · February 21, 2017

This should be fixed in the latest build, 145. (This wasn't related to your database — it was just a bug that would occur after deleting a collection and go away after a restart.)