help - last three months of references disappeared. how do I retrieve them?

stnvcgc

All my references added since 9th January (until my last use on 12th April) have just disappeared. I've synced with the server (which it's always done automatically anyway) but they're not there either. I'm not imaging it - I've been successfully pulling references from Zotero until recently, which are now simply not there.
Can anyone suggest any way of getting these back? Going crazy here...

dstillman

Is your Zotero data directory in its default location or somewhere else?

First, make backups of any zotero.sqlite* files you see there.

Then look in the 'storage' subdirectory, sort by date, and check whether there are folders corresponding with your usage since January 9th.

Nothing has been uploaded to your online library since January 9th, though I do see syncs throughout, which is a bit odd. It's possible you either accidentally disabled syncing of My Library in the Sync pane of the preferences or were getting a sync error (indicated by an icon next to the sync button), and then you somehow either ended up with Zotero pointed at a different data directory or something happened to your database. Zotero would then pull down the data that was available on the server (after warning you, in the empty-database case) and you would see only the data up to January 9.

stnvcgc

I've got a new laptop since last using Zotero and that's probably got something to do with it. I'd worried my data directory was on the hard drive of the old laptop, but that wouldn't make sense - I'd been using Zotero from other computers between January and April, and adding/using references without any problem. I've made sure my Zotero is synced with my Onedrive Zotero backup file, and restarted, but the 9th January cutoff still applies. Of the files in my Zotero backup, the sqlite seem to be 'last modified on' 28th November, while lots of the storage files were last modified in April, but I can't find any files within each storage file (which all have gibberish folder names) that stand out as being useful.
Are any of the files on Zotero 'log' files that can restore my database to a previous point in time?
And is there anywhere in London where I can take my laptop in person and ask them to rummage around the files? Really hoping I haven't lost three months' reading.
Thanks for your reply.

dstillman

I'd been using Zotero from other computers between January and April, and adding/using references without any problem.

Adding items to Zotero locally doesn't necessarily mean syncing them with your online library, though, which you don't appear to have done. Again, no data has been uploaded since January 9. So I'd guess that you set up Zotero on those other computers, downloaded your data (which only would've gone through January 9, since that's all that was online), and then added more items without ever syncing those back up successfully. (Why not, I couldn't tell you.)

If you still have access to those computers, you'd want to open Zotero there and, if you find the missing items, sync on those computers.