collection empties

kfitz

I'm having a bit of trouble with reliable syncing, not so much of my library as a whole, as of one collection within it. I'm running the Zotero 2.0 beta on multiple Macs (using OS 10.5.7 and Firefox 3.5.1), and have twice in the last ten days had the experience of discovering that the collection that represents the bibliography for my book has suddenly been emptied out and replaced with just the last few items I've added to it. Last time this happened, I was able to restore from the most recent automatic backup and get everything back, but this time, I'm not so lucky, as apparently I'd opened and quit Firefox more than once in the interim. I'm now digging back into my Time Machine backups, and I'm sure I'll be able to recover this lost data, but I thought I'd post this anyhow, as keeping that bibliography intact is, well, really really important, particularly as I only have twelve days before the deadline to get the book to the publisher. Anyhow. If you have any clues about why this is happening -- if perhaps I've set something up incorrectly, or am somehow doing something wrong -- please let me know... and thanks!

adamsmith

this is known
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8050/synchronizing-can-wipe-out-a-collections-contents/#Item_7
though it would be nice if the new, fixed version would be released soon...
Note that your bibliography should still work - you are not actually losing the items, just the collection.
Note also the workaround/backup option I suggest in that thread.

kfitz

I can see that the items are still there, of course. But the bibliography is 150+ items, and reconstructing it from the library is a serious pain, requiring more time than I have with twelve days to go (and several sections that still need to be written). Your workaround suggestion is a good one -- assuming I can get the collection restored from backup, I'll attempt to implement it. But first I've got to get it restored!

adamsmith

ah sorry - I assumed your bibliography was done with the word plugin. Without it, yeah, you'll will have to hope for those backups. bless time machine...

@Dan - you mentioned this is fixed - might be a good idea to push a 2.0b6.4 with that fix pretty soon... this has been out for too long now.

kfitz

Whew. Okay -- everything's been recovered from a backup, updated with the changes I'd made in the interim, and restored to the server. I've also tagged all the items in the collection so that it can be more easily reconstructed, if need be. Thanks for the help, and I'll hope the fix for this comes soon!

dstillman

2.0b6.4, available now, contains the fix for this.

kfitz

Fabulous -- thank you!