Question on 'conflict resolution'

I have a new computer and installed Zotero 5.0. I just loaded my previous Zotero library onto my computer by syncing it with my online account. A "conflict resolution" dialog box popped up asking me to "click the version to use for resolving conflicting fields. My options are local or remote. After poking around in the support documentation, I am still unsure what to choose. My goal is to populate the new version of Zotero on my computer with my files from my online account.
  • To clarify, currently there is nothing in the Zotero app located on my computer. It's completely blank. Whether to choose local or remote may seem like an obvious question, but I am afraid I could accidentally reverse the instructions and end up wiping out my online library.
  • I’m not sure how you could get that dialog with a completely empty library (“local” refers to the computer you are one). Do you mean the conflict box is popping up on your old computer? Did you previously have Zotero installed on the new computer?

    In any event, if you want to keep the version in the online library for everything, just select “remote” for all of the conflicts. Zotero only deletes items when you explicitly delete them in the app or online—syncing with an empty library will not delete anything.
  • While choosing the remote version should be fine, you definitely shouldn't get that if this is a new local data directory. @HarringtonA1, just to make sure you're starting clean, I would probably just delete the Zotero data directory with Zotero closed and sync to a truly empty data directory.
  • And if you really are getting the conflict resolution window for the first sync to a new data directory, I'd be interested to see a Debug ID for that sync through the conflict resolution window, since this shouldn't happen.
  • Thank you both for the responses. The conflict box is on my new computer. I am going to select remote to resolve the conflict because I know there is nothing in the local data directory that I intentionally put there, and it sounds like that will bring over my old library. I will see if I can get a Debug ID. It could be that I did something when I first opened the program that created the conflict.
  • I followed the Debug ID instructions and it said it sent.

    Here's the number: D184302202
  • Thank you again for your help.
  • That just shows file syncing — the debug output would have to be through the conflict resolution window appearing.

    And again, I wouldn't really recommend going through with conflict resolution until we figure out why it's happening for you (though starting from a clean directory would be fine).
  • I deleted my Zotero data directory with Zotero closed as you recommended. When I restarted Zotero, I got a notice about lacking a directory and asking about syncing. So now it's synced fresh.

    I don't know how to go back and create a debugging ID that shows what generated the conflict resolution problem for you. Apologies for that. And thanks again for the guidance.
This discussion has been closed.