Why 2.0?

Njall

I am a fan of Zotero. So, I was a bit dismayed to see the beta release of 2.0 before all of the problems with 1.5 got sorted out. Sync on my slower machine still does not work correctly (using 1.5) and I gather from recent forum comments that I am not alone.

Well, it seems that I now have to upgrade to 2.0beta. I just hope that the real problems with 1.5 have not been swept under the rug with this new release. It strikes me that this is not the time to be adding challenging new features.

Sorry to be such a wet blanket.

pesho

Njall,

2.0 has brought features that are absolutely essential (Group accounts) and a lot of poeple were waiting eagerly for them.

I am not sure what your problems are and what do you call 'slower machine'. I am running zotero on a 6 year old laptop and I don't have problems syncing.

Are you sure your problems come from zotero and not from other software you may be running in parallel?

Njall

The machine I am referring to has a slower Internet connection. What I have experienced is this:

The sync progress bar never makes it all the way across. Also, once I have created a new item on that machine, there is a lot of network traffic, often maxing out my connection. It will go on for hours, intermittently. The important point is that this firestorm of traffic begins when I create a new item, and it ends when I shut down Firefox. The error log generally does not have anything interesting in it.

Of course, now that version 1.5 is history, the exact conditions to produce this error are no longer accessible. I hope that matters improve with 2.0, but I am not optimistic. The reason is that this misbehavior is what I would expect with a protocol design error. It is notoriously difficult to get protocols and concurrent systems right. With 2.0, new features have been added that (I am guessing) will make these protocols more complex. What is the likelihood that if version 1.5's protocol is flawed (my supposition) the protocol in version 2.0 will be fixed?

All of this sounds terribly negative. Let me say, again, that I am a fan of Zotero, and recommend it at every chance that I get. So, to those who are working on it, thanks very much.

noksagt

Sync on my slower machine still does not work correctly (using 1.5) and I gather from recent forum comments that I am not alone.

Sync is constantly being improved. Recent forum comments re. syncing in 2.0 regard several problems: high zotero server load, client-side databases that aren't what was originally expected, etc. They may or may not have anything to do wit the issues that you encountered in 1.5.

The machine I am referring to has a slower Internet connection.

How slow? how many items do you have in your database? Are you experiencing issues with data sync or WebDAV file sync?

I hope that matters improve with 2.0, but I am not optimistic. The reason is that this misbehavior is what I would expect with a protocol design error.

WebDAV syncing has been improved significantly. If you were using this, it was consuming quite a bit of traffic in 1.5 & this has been resolved in 2.0.

You don't give a lot to help troubleshoot & you haven't even tried 2.0. Try it & if you continue to experience issues, post back & we'll try to help you out.