But if you do want them all offline, you can change it to download files "at sync time" and use Reset File Sync History from the Sync -> Reset pane of the Zotero preference to force it to check for all files, even if the state of the database and the 'storage' folder have diverged.
Thanks for these tips - very useful! We are all on Zotero 5 now (the last computer that upgraded gave us the original sync errors). I checked on Computer A and indeed, it was set to "as needed." Given our case of trying to restore the database using Computer A, is it wise for us to reset the file sync history to gather pdfs on Computer A before making a backup copy of all of the Zotero file folders to port over to another computer (in this case C, a windows computer), and then proceed with the amended process you last described? As soon as we saw errors in syncing the first time, we had turned off syncing/have not synced or reset anything on Computer A (our backup). Does Reset File Sync History only look at attachments, or does it also sync information in the top level records/references/tags? If we had to choose, we would prioritize restoring tags as they were (from Computer A), but ideally we would have both tags and pdfs attachments. You had mentioned earlier that it didn't look like pdfs were deleted, so this gives me hope that we may still have those on the server and don't want to lose the pdfs on the server if our backup does not currently have them because of the previous sync settings
I have many other group libraries that I need to restore and want to make sure we have all of the necessary steps before proceeding (hopefully with pdfs). After our results on the IKI-BackgroundLit sync, do you advise that we should proceed with your amended process for other libraries?
If you can wait until next week, we're going to try to reimplement a restore-to-online-library function for 5.0 (and allow it to work on group libraries, which has never been possible before). This is what I would recommend, and it will let you skip all these steps for the other libraries.
If not, I would ignore files for now, make sure you have backups of all data directories where files might have been created or download, and follow the above steps for the other libraries. But this method (with the initial deletion of all items in the online library) is a bit riskier with regard to files. If you have all the associated 'storage' directories, you should be able to reassociate the files, but it might take more work.
Thanks for the update - if you have any estimated time for this, it would be very helpful because our project has been on hold since this issue started almost a month ago
Sorry again to keep you waiting. We're finishing this up and should have something very soon — thanks for your patience.
I can also tell you that we did identify a bug with conflict resolution that could cause the local version not to be kept when it was selected, so that's probably what you experienced originally and also may be why the restore steps I gave above didn't entirely work. That bug is fixed in the current version.
Thanks for the useful update - we are honestly losing hope! About the now fixed bug, does this mean that we should now "in theory" be able to delete all references on the server within a group library and then sync using a local instance to update/restore back references onto the server? And from what I understand, we are waiting for a more elegant function to do this more efficiently/accurately?
On another issue: in anticipation of this, I have tried to set up a Zotero instance on a "fresh" computer and have gotten errors after trying to sync multiple times. I am running the newest version, with latest updates, and have gotten these error report IDs: 1671308522 and 438318420. I have not changed any settings after installing Zotero. Any advice?
Hi @dstillman - can you please provide an estimated time for your solution on restoring group libraries to the Zotero server from a local instance (and now syncing down from the server to a fresh local Zotero library)? If not this week, any suggestions for 1) speeding the process up for debugging, or 2) immediate workaround suggestions at this time are needed. Since our significant loss of data (and confidence in Zotero), brainstorming ways to not use Zotero anymore for our project seems to be the only way forward without a reliable, immediate (in the next few days) solution.
As a last hope - is the restore function/syncing more reliable for personal libraries at this time? If converting our group libraries to personal libraries is a feasible workaround that would retain Zotero unique keys and give us the option to share (presumably via Zotero file backups), please provide the best steps for us.
OK, if you're still with us, Restore to Online Library is now available in the latest 5.0 Beta. Sorry this took so much longer than expected — this ended up needing to take a backseat to the Firefox 57 update and everything that went along with that (i.e., pushing out Zotero 5.0 to all Zotero users and migrating everyone from the old Firefox version).
But if you install the beta, you can now choose an individual library from the Sync -> Reset pane of the preferences and do a Restore to Online Library, which should update the state of the library on zotero.org with the local version, including files. There's not yet a Restore from Online Library option for other computers, but if you make sure that all the other computers are in sync, the new restored version should sync down to those without your needing to do anything special. (It doesn't really matter what happens to the data on the various computers before the restore, since you'll just be updating to the version from your backup, but it's probably a good idea to sync each one a few times, since syncing one may cause changes that need to be synced to the others. Once they're all finishing the sync instantaneously, you'll know you can proceed with the restore.) The other computers don't need the beta version, but it's probably a good idea to temporarily disable auto-sync on those and make sure the restore goes through correctly before trying to pull down the new data.
We've just added this feature to the beta and it hasn't been extensively tested, so there may very well be bugs, but as long as you have a backup of your Zotero data directory, there's no risk to your data, and we can (quickly) work through any issues you find. I'd recommend starting debug output logging from the Help menu before starting the restore so that if there's a problem you can post a Debug ID.
Again, really sorry to keep you waiting here, and if you try this, let me know if you have any trouble so we can make sure you're up and running again as soon as possible.
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I have many other group libraries that I need to restore and want to make sure we have all of the necessary steps before proceeding (hopefully with pdfs). After our results on the IKI-BackgroundLit sync, do you advise that we should proceed with your amended process for other libraries?
If not, I would ignore files for now, make sure you have backups of all data directories where files might have been created or download, and follow the above steps for the other libraries. But this method (with the initial deletion of all items in the online library) is a bit riskier with regard to files. If you have all the associated 'storage' directories, you should be able to reassociate the files, but it might take more work.
I can also tell you that we did identify a bug with conflict resolution that could cause the local version not to be kept when it was selected, so that's probably what you experienced originally and also may be why the restore steps I gave above didn't entirely work. That bug is fixed in the current version.
On another issue: in anticipation of this, I have tried to set up a Zotero instance on a "fresh" computer and have gotten errors after trying to sync multiple times. I am running the newest version, with latest updates, and have gotten these error report IDs: 1671308522 and 438318420. I have not changed any settings after installing Zotero. Any advice?
As a last hope - is the restore function/syncing more reliable for personal libraries at this time? If converting our group libraries to personal libraries is a feasible workaround that would retain Zotero unique keys and give us the option to share (presumably via Zotero file backups), please provide the best steps for us.
But if you install the beta, you can now choose an individual library from the Sync -> Reset pane of the preferences and do a Restore to Online Library, which should update the state of the library on zotero.org with the local version, including files. There's not yet a Restore from Online Library option for other computers, but if you make sure that all the other computers are in sync, the new restored version should sync down to those without your needing to do anything special. (It doesn't really matter what happens to the data on the various computers before the restore, since you'll just be updating to the version from your backup, but it's probably a good idea to sync each one a few times, since syncing one may cause changes that need to be synced to the others. Once they're all finishing the sync instantaneously, you'll know you can proceed with the restore.) The other computers don't need the beta version, but it's probably a good idea to temporarily disable auto-sync on those and make sure the restore goes through correctly before trying to pull down the new data.
We've just added this feature to the beta and it hasn't been extensively tested, so there may very well be bugs, but as long as you have a backup of your Zotero data directory, there's no risk to your data, and we can (quickly) work through any issues you find. I'd recommend starting debug output logging from the Help menu before starting the restore so that if there's a problem you can post a Debug ID.
Again, really sorry to keep you waiting here, and if you try this, let me know if you have any trouble so we can make sure you're up and running again as soon as possible.