lost library in sync

cnewf · October 30, 2016

I have been a very active user of Zotero--in terms of the volume of documents on my harddrive--and recently upgraded from Mac OS 10.11 to 10.12 (Sierra) on my MacBook Pro. Firefox's performance plummeted with OS Sierra, so I reset it, which required reinstalling the Zotero plug in (with plug-in settings allegedly saved on my desktop).

When I relaunched Firefox with the restored Zotero plug-in, my library on the harddrive (2 group and 1 personal libraries) was empty. So I restored my Zotero library using Zotero syncing.

I then noticed that all my records from late 2013 through October 2016 were missing. I discovered that I had exceeded my storage capacity on the Zotero server nearly 3 years ago and hadn't noticed (either via a notification from Zotero or through a failed sync).

No problem, I thought. After buying storage capacity, I just restore my Zotero library from a back up saved on Time Machine. I followed the instructions here https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data#restoring_your_zotero_library_from_a_backup_and_overwriting_synced_changes There was one exception. I moved rather than copied my Storage file from the backup on my desktop to the active Zotero folder on my laptop because of its enormous size (the copy from Time Machine to my laptop had taken over two hours).

The backup zotero.sqlite file along with the backup Storage folder are now in my active Zotero file. Firefox, which was closed, has been relaunched. The missing 3 years of documents are still missing.

I did a date search within the backup-to-active Storage file and did not find 2014 or 2015 documents. And yet, since I use Zotero daily, I am quite sure these years were present before my reset of Firefox.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

dstillman · October 30, 2016

https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/restore_after_firefox_reset

If you reset Firefox, and you move the right files from the Old Firefox Data on your folder, you'll definitely get your old library back.

cnewf · November 2, 2016

There was an additional step after restoring the backed-up zotero.sqlite and storage folder to my hard drive. That was to override the data directory that Zotero had started to use after I had restarted the syncing process by buying more storage [randomstring.Chris], and to set the data directory back to the [randomstring.default] that had been used previously. The latter had the missing 3.5 years of data.

The good news is that I haven't lost all those files. The bad news is that a reset of Firefox, coupled with server folders that had hit their limit long ago with no notification, precipitated quite a bit of lost time and stress. My groups didn't notice because we had already switched to dropbox-like services for direct file sharing. For me, the server side of zotero has gone from high-trust to low-trust, meaning I now have to pay attention to it, and the whole point for someone like me who has to manage a couple of dozen services and subscriptions is that I don't have to pay attention and will get automatic notifications of things like blocked syncs due to lack of space. So I will discontinue all syncing of zotero servers and use it locally with local backups.

dstillman · November 2, 2016

I'm not really sure what you mean by most of this.

There was an additional step after restoring the backed-up zotero.sqlite and storage folder to my hard drive.

No steps are necessary other than the ones in the instructions. The instructions have you locate your active data directory (using "Show Data Directory"), rename the existing files, and move the backup files into that directory. That's all you'd ever need to do to get your full data back. If you've created other Firefox profiles, etc., you could fiddle with those, but it wouldn't be necessary as long as you used "Show Data Directory".

the data directory that Zotero had started to use after I had restarted the syncing process by buying more storage [randomstring.Chris]

The Firefox profile/data directory settings have nothing to do with buying more Zotero storage, so I don't know what you mean here.

server folders that had hit their limit long ago with no notification

Zotero never stops syncing anything without warning. Both sync errors and storage-full errors are indicated by icons to the left of the Zotero sync icon. People do overlook those, so we're going to add more prominent notifications in the future, but Zotero definitely notifies you now.

A Firefox reset is also obviously not within our control, but we're going to be migrating data directories out of the Firefox profile directory to /Users/<username>/Zotero starting in 5.0. (The full Firefox version will also be discontinued in the near future, so most of this will be moot.) You can of course choose to move your data directory out of the Firefox profile manually at any time.