Existing library not recognized

Matthias Volk

after new installation of Zotero the content of the existing library (content of 'storage' folder) was not recognized, even though new entries show up in that same storage folder. So the path to the folder is apparently correct, but some sort of directory does not see the old entries?!

Thanks in advance, Matthias
p.s.: Believe me, I DID search discussions and tutorials before I posted this

dstillman

I'm not quite clear what you mean here. When you say that new entries show up, what do you mean?

What's your data directory location in the Advanced → Files and Folders pane of the Zotero preferences?

To be clear, there are two main parts of the Zotero data directory: the zotero.sqlite database and the 'storage' subdirectory. The data directory location needs to be set to the directory containing the zotero.sqlite file.

Matthias Volk

Thanks for your support :-)
Here is what I can say for clarification:

>>When you say that new entries show up, what do you mean?<<
... when I make a new entry in the newly installed Z, a new directory (cryptic names) shows up in dir. 'storage'. The new entry (+ .pdf etc.) is then normally displayed and accessible in my library.
Only 1000 more directories, sitting in the same dir. 'storage', containing the old entries, remain invisible :-(

>>What's your data directory location in the Advanced → Files and Folders pane of the Zotero preferences?<<
... C:\Tools\zotero, For a number of reasons I could not go with the default path

>>To be clear, there are two main parts of the Zotero data directory: the zotero.sqlite database and the 'storage' subdirectory. The data directory location needs to be set to the directory containing the zotero.sqlite file<<
... under dir. 'zotero' I have
dirs.
'innards', 'locate', 'storage', 'styles' and 'translators'
files
zotero.sqlite
zotero.sqlite.1.bak
zotero.sqlite.bak
zotero.sqlite-journal

My guess is that .sqlite is not aware of the old content of dir. 'storage' and any other info from the old Z installation. zotero.sqlite is about 1MB in size.
I am afraid that the 'right' .sqlite got corrupted or lost in the transition from one Z installation to the other?


Regards, Matthias

dstillman

1 MB is an empty database (or close to it), so this wasn't your previous database. So somehow you ended up with a new database, even though (if I'm understanding you) all the old 'storage' folders are in this data directory. The 'storage' folders are useless without the database entries pointing to them, so you'll need to figure out what happened to the old zotero.sqlite database. Perhaps you tried to copy this data directory from elsewhere but the database was in use and didn't copy? (If this were a data directory upgraded from 4.0, though, there'd be a zotero.sqlite.77.bak file in there as well.)

(Also, I'm not sure where "innards" came from. That's not a folder we create.)

Matthias Volk

Dear d,

this (size of the database file) seems to be a quite unambiguous diagnosis.
Thanks a lot!
I'll go search for a larger sqlite database next. I let you know if I find something.

If you ever make it to Zurich or Basel I'll buy you a beer or two :-)

CHeers, m.

Matthias Volk

Great!
I found a 100MB .bak file, cut the '.bak' off and pasted it into the zotero dir.
Now most of my stuff is back again.

Thanks a lot, good job, m.