Missing half my entries

michelleestherobrien · August 2, 2019

I've read through some of the threads of folks with similar problems, but having trouble adapting their solutions. I switched to Zotero recently—importing from Papers 3—and was feeling good about it. Recently, however, half my entries disappeared. For authors starting with A through J, I have 3,477 references. For K through Z, I now have 41. Nearly all my references from the last half of the alphabet disappeared. When I search in my finder, I successfully find some them (but not others) in my Zotero folder. Like, for example, Moody 2000 The Rank and File Strategy.pdf shows up in folder 4TWKQ9ZN in my finder, but not at all in my Zotero library. My many PDFs of the Marx Engels Collected Works, however, I seem to not be able to find in my finder. I have sync set up, but am accessing my library through the same computer through which I added nearly all my entries.

What steps would anyone recommend to recover as much of my library as possible without searching for individual references in my finder and re-adding them one-by-one?

dstillman · August 2, 2019

Like, for example, Moody 2000 The Rank and File Strategy.pdf shows up in folder 4TWKQ9ZN in my finder, but not at all in my Zotero library.

That item still exists in your library, at least online. You should see it here. In your local Zotero, paste 4TWKQ9ZN into the search bar in All Fields & Tags mode in the library root to find it.

For authors starting with A through J, I have 3,477 references. For K through Z, I now have 41.

I'm not sure what you're seeing locally, but in your online library, you have a couple thousand items with first authors with last names K through Z.

Beyond that, you deleted 3,109 items (including child items) on July 4th and synced those deletions. No other items in your library have been deleted on any other days.