Empty Folders after Hard Reset!

Robbins-Roth

Hi everyone,

I am new to Zotero!

I had downloaded the standalone Zotero and have been using the Chrome extension. I had to do a hard reset on my computer to fix a microphone issue, but checked to make sure my Zotero was synced. I also accessed my online library, which reflected the correct files before the reset.

However, upon re-downloading Zotero and signing in after the reset, only the folders are there--no files! The folders are in the correct hierarchy, but are empty. The online version reflects this.

Under the user->zotero folder, I have folders named locate, storage, styles, and translators, and zotero.sqlite.

Can someone please help?

Thank you!

dstillman

I'm not really sure what you mean here. If you synced an empty database, your online library would look exactly like it looked before you did so — that wouldn't change anything online. And, indeed, nothing in your online library has changed in 5 days.

You have 52 top-level items in your online library, and 16 in various collections.

It's possible you hadn't synced all changes before deleting the local version, but whatever you have now is what you would've had before.

dstillman

(Completely separate from Zotero, also note that you should absolutely never wipe your computer without a complete backup of your disk from immediately before. Even if you're syncing most data to the cloud within individual apps, that's no replacement for a proper local backup of your whole computer.)

Robbins-Roth

It was synced prior to the hard reset (i.e., synced WITH files).

I wish I could've attached a screenshot, but when I signed in after the reset, the folders were empty (I had several other people look and make sure I was not crazy lol).

Now, the files are visible (thankfully).

Yes, I always back up everything on my SSD. But, thank you for the friendly tip.

dstillman

I wish I could've attached a screenshot

You can always upload a screenshot somewhere (e.g., Dropbox) and post a link here.

Nothing has changed in your account in days, and certainly nothing would've changed both online and locally, so not sure what to tell you here. I'd guess that you were somehow misunderstanding what you were seeing.

Yes, I always back up everything on my SSD.

So while it wasn't necessary here, since your data wasn't actually missing, you could always restore your Zotero data directory from a backup. Syncing to pull down the data is fine, as long as you were fully in sync before, but know that that's always an option when you have a backup. (You might also do that if you had a much larger Zotero library and wanted to avoid redownloading lots of data and files.)