Some Folders Differ on Two Computers That Sync to Zotero.org

jelarv

I have 787 entries in my Zotero library, which is identcal on two of my PCs (both synch with zotero.org). Sadly, I just realized when I annotate a PDF on one PC it doesn't always update the PDF on the other PC. Upon investigation, it appears for some of the PDFs, Zotero is storing them in different named folders between the two PCs. I did a directory search and found this in the Zotero storage directory:
On LAPTOP: 1,413 folders
On DESKTOP: 1,763 folders

When I compare the folders, there are 1,401 that are identical between the two computers while there are 375 that are unique to only one of the two computers, with 363 of them on the DESKTOP.

When I search in the "Duplicate Items" folder on either PC, there are only about 10 entries and so this isn't causing the problem.

I have two questions:
1. Why do I have more than double the folders as entries in my storage folder?
2. Since everything is syncing to zotero.org, is there a way to delete duplicates in the cloud?
3. If not, is there some other way I can remove all of the duplicates so that when I'm making a change to a PDF it will update on the other PC (I'm willing to delete all of the entries on both PCs and have them re-populate from the cloud if you think this will resolve the problem).

Thanks!

dstillman

If the folders have different names, they're just different items — either in different libraries (in which case they're not actually duplicates) or duplicate items within the same library. But this isn't a bug. The folders are just named after the attachment items in Zotero.

If you think a specific file isn't syncing, see Files Not Syncing.

jelarv

Thank you. Unfortunately, your response hasn't answered any of my questions.

dstillman

Because your questions are based on some misunderstandings. There'll be one folder per attachment, not just per top-level item, and if files appear in multiple libraries, there'll be multiple files. Folders in storage can't, by definition, be duplicates, because they're just referencing items in your library.

I provided a link to the process for actually debugging the problem of specific files — and any changes you make to them — not appearing on multiple computers.

From the numbers you give, it's possible you have some orphaned files on the desktop — from a failed import, say — but you would want to debug file syncing first, and you also don't really need to worry about orphaned folders. A future version of Zotero will likely help clean those up, but there's no built-in way to do that now. Again, they're not actually duplicates.

adamsmith

I can answer the questions, but to address the problem that you're describing, I think the direction in which dstillman was trying to lead you is more helpful:

1. Likely because every attachments (not every item) has its own folder
2. No; if Zotero doesn't find duplicate items locally, it wouldn't find them in the cloud anyway
3. There are two scenarios here: either the items aren't synced (see dstillman's link -- the presence of multiple folders with different IDs in your storage folder would suggest that might be the case)
or Zotero doesn't find the duplicates (duplicate detection goes through item metadata, so e.g. if a PDF isn't attached to an item, ZOtero would never identify it as a duplicate). You'd need to identify which of the two it is and then fix accordingly.

jelarv

Thank you!