All entires have gone

elisa12345

I used Zotero for the first time a couple of weeks ago, adding journal articles directly from Firefox. I have just opened it again now and there are no entries in the application, it just says welcome to Zotero and offers me a quick tour. How can I get my articles back? Thanks!

dstillman

When you say "directly from Firefox", do you mean saving to Zotero from the Zotero Connector, or by manually creating items in the online library on zotero.org? If the former, did you add them on the computer you're currently using?

Generally, see Locating Missing Zotero Data.

elisa12345

I used to Zotero Connector. I've tried the link you provided and located the folder where my data is meant to be stored - I've saved another article through the Connector just now and it's showing up in a folder named storage, however, none of the articles I saved a couple of weeks ago are anywhere to be found.

elisa12345

And yes, it was the same computer both times!

dstillman

Do you see any other older folders in 'storage'? Do you see any older (based on the timestamp) zotero.sqlite.* backup files in the data directory?

If not, either something deleted your old data directory (is this a personal machine?) or it's somewhere else on your computer and Zotero somehow ended up pointing at a different folder.

elisa12345

There is a zotero.sqlite file, but when I try to open it, it says that there is no app on my computer to open this file with (it's a regular MacBook Air with all the standard applications on it). It's just my own personal laptop, so nobody would have deleted anything. I did a general software update the other day, could this have anything to do with it? I liked Zotero when I first tried it the other day and have now just re-downloaded the journal articles, but I'm obviously a bit worried about using it now because I don't want to lose my data again when I'm further along with my dissertation...
Does Zotero delete entries automatically after a while? I thought that once you saved articles to it, they would just stay there!

elisa12345

Also, the zotero.sqlite file's info says created 18th October - it's literally like I've never used Zotero before even though I'd stored stuff in it a couple of weeks ago :/

dstillman

That file isn't something you open — that's just where your data is stored.

I can't tell you what happened, but somehow the Zotero data directory got moved or deleted outside of Zotero, or you're misremembering something about your previous usage. (Is it possible you were using a different account and saving from the Zotero Connector straight to the online library rather than to the Zotero app?) If the former, the linked page explains how you would search your computer for other versions of the data directory. But this isn't something that Zotero itself could have done. If this were the data directory you were using previously, there would be other, older files in it.

elisa12345

Okay, I have just quit Zotero after storing eleven journal articles in it tonight, opened it again, and again everything is gone. It's suggesting I take the quick start guide. The storage folder on my computer that contained the PDF versions of the articles that appeared automatically as I downloaded them, has also disappeared.

dstillman

OK, so obviously something very weird is going on on your computer outside of Zotero.

Is your data directory set to the standard location, at /Users/:username/Zotero, or is it somewhere else?

dstillman

Can you reproduce this reliably? Open Zotero, add an item with a PDF and have a folder show up in 'storage', restart Zotero, and have the data and the 'storage' folder disappear?

elisa12345

Yes, it's set to the standard location. I have just searched for Zotero on my computer, and three folders named "Zotero" have turned up - two of them contain a folder named "storage" that have some PDFs in them (i.e. from the first time I tried a couple of weeks ago and from tonight) and one that doesn't have a storage folder, seems like that one was created just now when I opened it again. So it seems like Zotero just "forgets" I used it before, every time I try to open it.

elisa12345

So it seems the PDFs stay on the computer somehow, but the Zotero application is completely blank, not showing any of the references I saved.

dstillman

What’s the location of the other two folders?