OK, I'm slow, but I think I figured it out. Could someone please let me know if I'm wrong. I will remove Dropbox from the equation altogether and sync to each of my computers directly. I'm thinking that I will backup my Zotero folder just in case and then reinstall Zotero so everything goes into the default folders, then sync to Zotero.org. If I do this on each computer, then each computer will sync to Zotero.org directly, is that right?
Sorry for such a basic question, but it was hard keeping track of what goes where. Thanks for your patience, if any.
1. whenever you something like this and you are not exactly sure what you do: backup the whole zotero folder at least once, if not twice. 2. there is a difference betwen linked and stored files. Linked Files are not synced by zotero. They are also not synced by dropbox, unless you have dropbox sync the folder where they are in. 3. if you want to have a tidy solution, i.e. everything synced by zotero, you need to store all the files within the zotero folder. 4. set everything properly up on one computer while the other is turned off. Then sync to zotero. Then turn the other on, go to settings/sync and choose the reset tab and choose "restore from server". thats it.
If you don't want to have to move things around, this should be easily accomplished by using Syncless (http://code.google.com/p/big5sync/) to do a constant, seamless sync between your Zotero folder and an arbitrarily designated folder in the Dropbox. I do this with a number of programs, like KeePass, AutoHotKey, Launchy and others.
Example: on computer A you have your Zotero folder sync with the My Dropbox\Zotero folder. On computer B, you do exactly the same thing. You just have to make sure Dropbox and Syncless are running before you open Firefox to ensure you have the latest version of your files. This shouldn't be an issue, as both normally run at startup.
You can also set Syncless to sync another backup copy somewhere else on your harddrive, as well as to Dropbox. That should, theoretically, create a Zotero library and database with four or five redundant copies. Syncless also allows you to keep up to 10 archived copies of past versions of files, in case something gets corrupted or damaged any other way.
before you use any Dropbox based solution, search the forum for Dropbox and read a bunch of the threads on corrupted databases due to Dropbox.
If you still feel you want to use it with Zotero, go ahead - but don't say you haven't been warned.
Short version: having Firefox open at the same on two computers synced by Dropbox may corrupt your Zotero database.
Dropbox (and some other sync tools) seem to mostly be used because they provide a large amount of somewhat-easy-to-obtain storage for free & can thus be used for file syncing (instead of the more robust and supported WebDAV and Zotero storage).
One reason that people have tried to use these tools to also sync 'zotero.sqlite' is that some of these sync tools make it difficult to map a specific subdirectory for syncing & so they just make their zotero data directory their dropbox folder.
One of these lightweight sync tools might be a good way to sync only the 'storage' folder that is beneath your zotero data directory to a place that dropbox (or another tool) can work with it. Again, this is not as elegant as using one of the two supported file sync methods; it is just a way of removing the risk of database corruption that is one of the largest downsides of syncing with one of these limited third-party tools.
I agree with noksagt.
I don't see why not to use WebDAV:
It is easy to find free WebDAV-services with Google, and they offer the same amount of free space (2 GB) as Dropbox and are as easy to set up
(I use www.mydrive.ch - in the Zotero Sync preferences, I enter webdav.mydrive.ch, my username+pw, and everything works fine between the connected zoteros.)
In this way I save the space on my Dropbox for other things..
The only thing I don't understand is why on the WebDAV-server there are no PDF files, but only ZIPs and some with the extension ".prop" - if they were in normal PDF format, I could even access them via a browser without Zotero. But this belongs in another thread..
A lot of cloud services like, Dropbox and JungleDisk, use Amazon S3 storage on the backend. In fact, Zotero itself also uses Amazon S3. So what's being debated in most cases is the frontend to S3, which differ in terms of easy of use, features, and cost.
I have been using JungleDisk to sync attachments and Zotero to sync everything else and haven't had any problems.
agreed - if you want a free or cheap solution, try JungleDisk or any other free or cheap WebDAV - no one at Zotero is discouraging that (in fact questions about this are usually answered, so there's at least partial support) and it gives you the same features as Zotero Storage with the exception of file sharing in groups. I'm just warning against Dropbox (which might offer, but by default isn't, a WebDAV) specifically for the reasons stated above.
Agreed. Different solutions will work for different people.
I started using JungleDisk before Zotero offered attachment syncing. My main reason for using JD is that the storage was fairly cheap and scalable, I could use it for other types of file storage/sync/backup, supported all major platforms, and supported encryption of files in the cloud not just during transfer. JD has a lot of features but it is probably not as easy to configure and use as some other services.
I was trying to use Zotero with Dropbox, but got annoyed with the conflicted copies of the sqlite file. I was always checking the date and size on that file and trying to delete conflicts and keep the right one. I seemed to get conflicts even when the other computer was off (or maybe it was sleep).
Anyway, I took the advice above (from user nbux) and got free WebDAV from http://www.mydrive.ch/
Off Topic - I tried Mendeley as well, and it was very good, but I liked Zotero's ability to generate items from PDFs a little better. Though [very] occasionally some are wrong - have to watch out for that.
Until now I've been happy with the following solution.
I didn't move my Zotero folder from its original location. Instead, I put the complete profile folder (but the cache) into my Dropbox. Just search "manage firefox profile" to do so.
If you want to protect your data on one computer (eg at your workplace) just do as I did: create a basic 2 Gb truecrypt file, use always the same letter and put your Dropbox folder in it.
sozusagen's method is fine for back-up, but it is really, really not recommended for syncing between multiple computers. You're running serious risk of corrupting your database and you might not be able to get it back.
Hi,
Mydrive.ch is great but only if you don't have more than 1000 files. MyDrive.ch allows you only 1000 files per folder and zotero doesn't split the files into many folders, unfortunatelly...
This is the answer I got from MyDrive support:
--------
In the case of Zotero, we have already had occasion to deal with the problem:
- We have already had problems with MyDrive with the Zotero directory synchronization with Webdav
- We do not support the unlimited amount of files
We also contacted Zotero to ask to move files in multiple folders,
but unfortunately we received a negative response ;-(
------
What I did now is to use Dropbox to sync only the "storage" folder, and sync the database with zotero. I created a folder in my Dropbox directory and then I created a link to that folder called "storage" and I replaced the original "storage" folder in the zotero directory by this link. In this way, only the storage folder is sync by Dropbox and the database is sync by zotero, avoiding the conflicts that may appear if you sync the whole zotero directory with Dropbox, for example if the zotero in one pc is updated and not the one in another pc.
As far as I understand this should work only in linux since, opposite to windows, linux doesn't differentiate a directory from a link.
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Sorry for such a basic question, but it was hard keeping track of what goes where. Thanks for your patience, if any.
2. there is a difference betwen linked and stored files. Linked Files are not synced by zotero. They are also not synced by dropbox, unless you have dropbox sync the folder where they are in.
3. if you want to have a tidy solution, i.e. everything synced by zotero, you need to store all the files within the zotero folder.
4. set everything properly up on one computer while the other is turned off. Then sync to zotero. Then turn the other on, go to settings/sync and choose the reset tab and choose "restore from server".
thats it.
Example: on computer A you have your Zotero folder sync with the My Dropbox\Zotero folder. On computer B, you do exactly the same thing. You just have to make sure Dropbox and Syncless are running before you open Firefox to ensure you have the latest version of your files. This shouldn't be an issue, as both normally run at startup.
You can also set Syncless to sync another backup copy somewhere else on your harddrive, as well as to Dropbox. That should, theoretically, create a Zotero library and database with four or five redundant copies. Syncless also allows you to keep up to 10 archived copies of past versions of files, in case something gets corrupted or damaged any other way.
If you still feel you want to use it with Zotero, go ahead - but don't say you haven't been warned.
Short version: having Firefox open at the same on two computers synced by Dropbox may corrupt your Zotero database.
One reason that people have tried to use these tools to also sync 'zotero.sqlite' is that some of these sync tools make it difficult to map a specific subdirectory for syncing & so they just make their zotero data directory their dropbox folder.
One of these lightweight sync tools might be a good way to sync only the 'storage' folder that is beneath your zotero data directory to a place that dropbox (or another tool) can work with it. Again, this is not as elegant as using one of the two supported file sync methods; it is just a way of removing the risk of database corruption that is one of the largest downsides of syncing with one of these limited third-party tools.
I don't see why not to use WebDAV:
It is easy to find free WebDAV-services with Google, and they offer the same amount of free space (2 GB) as Dropbox and are as easy to set up
(I use www.mydrive.ch - in the Zotero Sync preferences, I enter webdav.mydrive.ch, my username+pw, and everything works fine between the connected zoteros.)
In this way I save the space on my Dropbox for other things..
The only thing I don't understand is why on the WebDAV-server there are no PDF files, but only ZIPs and some with the extension ".prop" - if they were in normal PDF format, I could even access them via a browser without Zotero. But this belongs in another thread..
I have been using JungleDisk to sync attachments and Zotero to sync everything else and haven't had any problems.
I'm just warning against Dropbox (which might offer, but by default isn't, a WebDAV) specifically for the reasons stated above.
I started using JungleDisk before Zotero offered attachment syncing. My main reason for using JD is that the storage was fairly cheap and scalable, I could use it for other types of file storage/sync/backup, supported all major platforms, and supported encryption of files in the cloud not just during transfer. JD has a lot of features but it is probably not as easy to configure and use as some other services.
Anyway, I took the advice above (from user nbux) and got free WebDAV from http://www.mydrive.ch/
Off Topic - I tried Mendeley as well, and it was very good, but I liked Zotero's ability to generate items from PDFs a little better. Though [very] occasionally some are wrong - have to watch out for that.
I didn't move my Zotero folder from its original location. Instead, I put the complete profile folder (but the cache) into my Dropbox. Just search "manage firefox profile" to do so.
If you want to protect your data on one computer (eg at your workplace) just do as I did: create a basic 2 Gb truecrypt file, use always the same letter and put your Dropbox folder in it.
Mydrive.ch is great but only if you don't have more than 1000 files. MyDrive.ch allows you only 1000 files per folder and zotero doesn't split the files into many folders, unfortunatelly...
This is the answer I got from MyDrive support:
--------
In the case of Zotero, we have already had occasion to deal with the problem:
- We have already had problems with MyDrive with the Zotero directory synchronization with Webdav
- We do not support the unlimited amount of files
We also contacted Zotero to ask to move files in multiple folders,
but unfortunately we received a negative response ;-(
------
What I did now is to use Dropbox to sync only the "storage" folder, and sync the database with zotero. I created a folder in my Dropbox directory and then I created a link to that folder called "storage" and I replaced the original "storage" folder in the zotero directory by this link. In this way, only the storage folder is sync by Dropbox and the database is sync by zotero, avoiding the conflicts that may appear if you sync the whole zotero directory with Dropbox, for example if the zotero in one pc is updated and not the one in another pc.
As far as I understand this should work only in linux since, opposite to windows, linux doesn't differentiate a directory from a link.