Reconstructing link between document and database

JustSomeChemist

Hi all,

yesterday I had to delete and re-import my library to fix a bug I encountered (see https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/64827/macos-error-when-trying-to-insert-new-citations-or-set-doc-preferences#latest)
The bug is fixed, but today I realised that my solution broke the link between my document and my database. The citations are still in place, I can create a bibliography correctly and even change citation style (although it gets the formatting wrong when I change back to my original style). When I click Insert/Edit citation, It shows them correctly in the modern view (at least for most of them), but when I switch to classical view, there are no cites inside.

Is there any way to reconstruct the link between document and database by using author names, volume numbers, page numbers or whatever?

If anyone can give a hint on a possible solution, I would be very grateful. Putting it all back in manually will probably cost me a whole day and is a pretty brain-grinding task. Luckily I noticed now with "only" 95 citations in place :/

Thanks

adamsmith

Sorry, there's no way to do this -- it's one of the reasons we always tell people to not use export/import with their database (there was unfortunately no way to stop you when you posted, since that was already in the past).

Gurdas_Sandhu

And you have no recent backup of your library?

JustSomeChemist

@adamsmith I was afraid you were going to say that. Unfortunately it was the only thing I could come up with to fix the bug, which basically rendered Zotero unusable. I just can't halt writing for several days to fix a bug. But next time I'll know, thanks.

@gurdas I have the library and backups. The problem is that it disconnects your document from the library when you delete/import the library. All citations already set cannot be edited/updated anymore when that happens.

Gurdas_Sandhu

I meant a backup of your entire Zotero folder, not a backup created by exporting the library. I believe if you have the entire folder, it will maintain the connections to your document. Maybe @adamsmith can confirm that.

JustSomeChemist

Since I was not aware of the consequences, I don't have an appropriate backup of the Zotero folder. I tried using the oldest file there was, but it was already broken.

So I will have to go through and replace every citation. And clean up my library and make backups since the links are currently broken anyway. From now on I'll know :)

I'm still pretty sure that doing all of it by hand in the first place would consume a _lot_ more time than fixing these issues, so I'm not too upset about it.
And just so nobody gets me wrong: I still think Zotero is amazing

adamsmith

Sorry about that. For future reference, we typically respond pretty quickly here, so the ideal approach when you run into trouble is to post relatively quickly (I'd say don't spend more than 5-10mins troubleshooting) and before taking any drastic steps.
Only a tiny fraction of issues takes longer than 24hs to solve and even there we're often able to provide workarounds for the meantime..