Missing collections -- Report ID 1599462854

Tony Millett
I run Zotero version 4.0.29.17 on my PC, which has Windows 10.0 installed. My PC was recently hacked, and while no damage was done I lost my connection to Zotero. This was reinstalled yesterday, but unfortunately some of my collections are missing. I went to zotero.org /MyLibrary, to look at the list of collections under my name, to find that no collections created later than 1 January 2014 are listed. There are 20 collections created since 1 January 2014 that are missing, including some created this year. How can these missing collections be found?
Tony Millett
tony.millett@xtra.co.nz
  • dstillman
    It doesn't look like you synced between March 2014 and today, so if you don't have a backup of your local data, I'm afraid there's no way to recover it.
  • Tony Millett
    Thank you for this response. I thought syncing was done automatically. Zotero Help says: "By default, Zotero will sync your data with the server whenever changes are made". On my PC, in Zotero Preferences / Sync, the box "Sync automatically" is ticked. Is this not correct? I am surprised that, in an online bibliographic system, users' bibliographic records are not saved.
  • adamsmith
    Hard to say -- most likely you disabled auto-sync on Zotero previously (now that it's re-installed, that setting goes back to its default). Alternatively, there was a sync error that you didn't notice and that prevented sync from going through.

    Zotero is not an "online bibliographic system". It's bibliographic software with an entirely optional cloud syncing component. All primary activity and the main data storage is all on your local computer.

    Any back-up of your old harddisk? A full harddisk back-up would include your full Zotero library.
  • Tony Millett
    Many thanks for your very helpful comments.
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