Unable to drag and drop items from one group library to another

iansethmcphail

I am working on a systematic review and have multiple group libraries open and syncing in Zotero standalone 5.0.55 on Mac OS X 10.13.6.
Normally, I can select items from one group library and drag and drop them over to another group library without a problem. I can also usually drag entire collections in group libraries and drop them into different group libraries with no issue whatsoever.

However, I seem to be having issues with one group library in particular. If I select all items and drag them to an empty library, nothing happens (doing this action with any of my other libraries works fine.) Lets call this library the problem library.
Dragging a collection from my problem library into an empty (newly created) library initially shows a small number of imported items (sometimes 6, sometimes 43, but never the entire collection) but they disappear as soon as I focus elsewhere.

I read in this https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/73175/moving-items-from-my-library-to-a-group-library-containing-another-version-of-the-item#latest post that

" The item isn't moved if it originates from the same item, regardless of how similar or different the metadata is.
i.e. moving an item to group, then modifying item (either in group or personal library), the moving again doesn't work. Same if the item was originally created in the group. "

The problem library is indeed composed of items that originated from other libraries. Said items were then modified within the problem library.
However, what I find the most odd, is that I can drag and drop one item at a time with seemingly no issue. The problem only arises when I try and drag and drop multiple items.

It is worth nothing that the items I am trying to add to another group library have file attachments whereas my other group libraries do not.

The issue is reproducible with all add-ons (Zotfile + Zutilo) disabled.

dstillman

Can you provide a Debug ID for a drag attempt that doesn't work?

iansethmcphail

Hi @dstillman. Debug ID is D364390018.

I added more info to my original post. I hit "post comment" too early by accident :)

dstillman

Cross-library drag to non-collection not allowed

Where are you trying to drag the items? Note that you can't drag to Unfiled Items.

iansethmcphail

I am trying to drag a sub-sub-collection (or a selection of items, neither works) from the problem library directly to the library of another library. Which usually works.

dstillman

1) Restart Zotero and try again.

2) If it's still not working, check your database integrity from the Advanced → Files and Folders pane of the Zotero preferences.

iansethmcphail

Not sure what happened but it seems to have worked.

I restarted Zotero and checked database integrity. No issues found, yet I could still reproduce the problem.

I restarted Zotero again and checked database integrity again. No issues found. I tried reproducing the problem again but got an error message in the item pane saying "An error has occurred. Please restart Zotero."

I restarted Zotero and tried reproducing the problem. Works great now. Don't know what you did, but it helped. Cheers!

dstillman

OK, if it happens again, let us know.

iansethmcphail

Oops I did it again...

Debug error: D1903568160

This time with two different libraries (one containing the results of the problem library I was having issues with last time)

dstillman

It looks like you may be trying to do this while a sync is ongoing. That shouldn't result in a failure, but it may be what's causing this.

Restart Zotero, make sure it has fully finished syncing, and then try again.

Also, approximately how many items are below the collection you're trying to drag (including subcollections)?

iansethmcphail

Not trying to drag collections this time. Just all the items from one library (1136 items) into another library (118 items). The larger library had some smart searches saved so I deleted those.

I restarted Zotero, made sure it was finished syncing, and tried again.
It showed about 400 articles made the transfer until I got the same error message as before and had to restart.
Got an error ID: 988378943

Now though it seems like all the items made it over (1254 items in target library - as expected) ?

dstillman

There's likely a problem with a specific item (or a few) in your library. If you wanted to track it down further, you could do it with a binary search:

1) Create a temporary library.

2) Temporarily disable auto-sync.

3) Sort by Title.

4) Drag half of the items (e.g., starting with A-M) at a time into the temporary library. If the problem occurred again, it was a problem with an item that half, and you could delete the items in the target library, empty the trash in the target library, and drag half of that previous half. If the problem didn't occur, you'd try the other half (e.g., N-Z). (Technically it'd be quicker to try half of the other half (e.g., N-T), since you would already know the problem was somewhere in N-Z, but that's a little harder to track.)

That would reveal the item in question in about 10 steps. If you identified the item, you could export that to Zotero RDF and email it to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread, and we could take a look.

Or, alternatively, you could ignore this until it causes you further trouble.

iansethmcphail

Thanks @dstillman.

I reckoned that might be the issue. I've tried variants of what you just proposed but not with such precise methodology.
I'm working with a deadline right now and don't have too much time to spend debugging so for now I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope things continue running smoothly but I will come back to this thread/e-mail you once I have the time to track down the problem items using your steps above.

Thanks again for your fast responses and for your kindness.

realtime99

I was able to solve problems with drag and drop between group libraries by making sure that I emptied the trash in each. I think if an item is in the trash of library 1, dragging library 2 item into library 1 restores the item from trash rather than making a new copy. Regardless of the reason, it worked for me.

kdb_research

I'm also having this problem. Emptying the Group Library trash seems to encourage it to work harder, but it doesn't copy -- even a sub-collection. I've submitted a debug log: D289948494.

Exporting the group library seems to work -- slowly.