Reinstalled Zotero 5.0 but sync wiped out my documents online!!!

Carla Allen

I was having trouble getting my laptop to sync with my Zotero library yesterday (11/29/17). My group libraries weren't showing up and the collection folder configuration was different than what is on my office computer and Zotero.org. Since syncing wasn't correcting these issues, I deinstalled and reinstalled Zotero. This removed all of the items from the library, but the collection folders reappeared -not the current ones I see online or in my office library, but the ones from the deinstalled version of zotero. It is syncing now. Why would the old organizational structure persist? Is there any way to get the files on my laptop to match everything else?

Carla Allen

And instead of copying things from the online library into the new one, it has deleted a LOT of my dissertation work!!!! Don't know what is up with the sync function with the latest upgrade, but you should have left it alone!!!!!

dstillman

You're misunderstanding how this works (and has always worked). Syncing transfers changes, so if it's deleting collections or items on one side (locally or remotely), you made those deletions on the other side and it's simply applying those changes. It sounds like you deleted things trying to force Zotero to use data from the other side, but that's just not how this works. (If you think about it, this is the only way syncing would possibly make sense — otherwise if you made a change on one side, Zotero wouldn't know which version to use.)

If you want to clear your local data and replace it with the remote version, you can delete the Zotero data directory and sync. (There used to be Restore to Zotero Server and Restore from Zotero Server options in the Sync preferences, and those will be returning, but they're not necessary for normal usage.)

But if you're already missing data both on the laptop and in your online library, your only option would be to temporarily disable auto-sync and then restore from a version of your data directory that hasn't yet synced (e.g., a backup). If your office computer hasn't yet synced, you should make a backup of the Zotero data directory on that computer with Zotero closed, temporarily disable the computer's network connection, and then open Zotero and disable auto-sync in the Sync pane of the preferences. We can then walk you through getting that version of your database back up to zotero.org (which will require an upcoming beta version of Zotero that restores the Restore to Zotero Server function).

Carla Allen

I understand that deleting information from one library will erase it from the other library when it syncs. BUT I completely deinstalled the zotero app from my laptop and reinstalled Zotero 5. THAT should have caused the system to recognize the library on my laptop as brand new and populated it rather than seeing everything as deleted. I would have stopped the automatic sync on my office computer, but I didn't realize that the sync on the laptop was deleting everything until they disappeared.
I do have a copy of the zotero files backed up on a hard drive, but when I tried (before this incident) to copy those files to my laptop, they did not show up. Trying to see if I can restore from there now.

dstillman

BUT I completely deinstalled the zotero app from my laptop and reinstalled Zotero 5.

It depends what you mean by that. By default, uninstalling Zotero and reinstalling has no effect on your data. If this is on Windows, there's an option to remove your data directory was well, and if you chose that, that would delete your data directory. But if you did that, there's no way for what you describe to happen — there's just nowhere for an old version to come from other than from the online library. (But an old version couldn't sync up to the online library anyway, since Zotero only syncs explicit deletions.)

dstillman

And from our logs, it does appear that you did a full download of your library with 4.0 yesterday, which would make sense if you removed your local data. But that would've restored your library as it existed on zotero.org, not to some old version.

There was then some additional (download-only) syncing with 5.0 today, followed by deletions of 14 collections about an hour later. No items were deleted today.

dstillman

So if you can find a backup of your database from before those collection deletions (with auto-sync disabled), we can walk you through restoring those to the online library.