some attachments do not sync

czucz
After reinstalling windows & zotero on my computer, I realized that quite a few recent attachments were missing from one of my group libraries, which apparently were not fetched from the zotero storage. I luckily made a full backup before reinstalling my computer, so I could put the local copies of these missing attachments back to the local zotero storage folder. Now the local zotero 5.0.89 nicely finds and opens these attachments, but they don't get synced up to the zotero cloud. (The file name is there in the web app, but it is 'greyed out', and you cannot open it.) I tried a couple of things to convince zotero to reupload these attachment (stop & restrat syncing, database reapir...) with no success.
Any help welcome!!! Thanks a lot!
  • dstillman
    You absolutely don't need to manually put anything back in the 'storage' folder.

    See Files Not Syncing to understand why this would happen. If the files aren't online, it would be a problem on the computer where you originally created the files — they simply were never uploaded.
  • dstillman
    edited September 22, 2020
    Or if you're saying that this is the computer where you originally added the files and you just wiped it and synced Zotero to pull down your data, that just means the files hadn't uploaded before you wiped the computer. File syncing could've been disabled, you might've been at your file storage quota, or you might've been getting some sort of file sync error that you didn't notice.

    When wiping your computer, you'd always to make a backup and simply restore the full backup of the Zotero data directory (and anything else, really) — no need to individually pick out files from the backup.

    If you're not getting a sync error now but some local files aren't online, go to the Sync → Reset pane of the Zotero preferences and choose Reset File Sync History (and only that) to force Zotero to try to reupload all local files.
  • czucz
    OK, I see. :( Yes, that computer 'does not exist' since Friday. I will try the Reset file sync history now' & let you know what happens. Thanks for your quick answer!!!
  • czucz
    It did not help. :( After the 'reset file sync history' when I pressed the sync button, there was something like a counter showing up (as if it was counting ~30 items to sync) but it was over extremely quickly, and I still cannot see any of the files being added to the online drive. There was no sync error either.

    I also made full backup before that is why it took so long. But while I was doing this I noticed that my storage folder is 3,5Gb while the zotero webapp says that I am currently occupying ~1.6Gb (80% of my 2Gb). May this be related to my sync problems? I have never received a message that I was running out of storage, though.

    I am completely stuck... so thanks for any help!
  • dstillman
    edited September 22, 2020
    The page I linked to above explains the info we need if you're still having trouble.
  • czucz
    Wow. I turned on the debug logging & repeated exactly the same steps again. And this time... the attachments synced up! This time it took ~2 minutes for everything to go up, and my files are nicely there in the cloud. Thanks!!!!
    (PS1: I will now go on and check my other group libraries for attachment "integrity" -- I hope I will cope alone now...)
    (PS2: I did not submit the debug output, but am happy to do so if you think that it is still useful for you...)
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