Conflict, manual sync required -- so, how?

ankh

I have my username and password the same for Zotero under Firefox on the home (Mac) and the office (Windows), but they never synchronize. Yellow triangle, conflict, manual sync is required -- happens on both the home and the office machine.

I exported the library files from the office machine and took the files home; I can open them on the Mac desktop:

Folder named MyZLibrary
inside is a folder named Files,
containing numbered folders
containing recognizable stuff I'd like to move to the local collection (lots of stuff)
and a file named MyZLibrary.rdf

Can I work with these files to move that content into the copy of Zotero on the Mac?
Cookbook step-by-step appreciated, if available, or a pointer, or a clue.

dstillman

Just click the green sync button. We've clarified that message for the next version.

Don't use export/import to transfer libraries.

ankh

I've failed to make my description clear. Let me try again:

On either the office PC or the home Mac

I click the green Sync button (the one with the arrow making a 270-degree turn).

It runs a while. I get a yellow triangle left of the button.

I hover over the yellow triangle.

It says a sync error occurred, click for details.

I click, it says "Background sync resulted in conflict -- manual sync required."

ankh

Let me try to make this even simpler.

I searched on "manual sync" and realize there are several different threads all about this same, or more or less the same, kind of question from different people. I tried to add to one earlier.

Here's one: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8704/ideas-for-improving-error-message-errorbackground-sync-resulted-in-conflict/

But it ends the same as the others, you explain what you're doing but not whether there's anything the user can do yet.
Dan, I know there's a problem being worked on.

I thought I could access one library from two computers, set it up as I thought it should work, and I"ve ended up with one library on the PC and another on the Mac, that were once the same and are now, months later, very different.

Is there a way, now, to put the PC file and the Mac file together into one library?

dstillman

But it ends the same as the others, you explain what you're doing but not whether there's anything the user can do yet. Dan, I know there's a problem being worked on.

You misunderstand. Nothing is being "worked on". That message isn't an error message—it just means there's a conflict that requires user intervention, and you need to click the sync icon manually to resolve it. This is by design, so that a conflict resolution window doesn't pop up in the middle of a user's active work in Zotero.

Unless the sync icon is already spinning from an earlier automatic sync, you should never receive that message after clicking the icon manually. If you do, there's a problem we're not currently aware of that needs to be fixed, and we'll need debug output to fix it. If this is the case, generate debug output for the manual sync attempt from the Advanced pane of the Zotero prefs, submit the output to the server, and post the Debug ID here.

Is there a way, now, to put the PC file and the Mac file together into one library?

This is a completely separate issue. You don't say how you originally got the data onto the other machine. If you did so via sync, then you just need a successful sync to go through (which may require fixing the above issue). If you did so another way, you'll need to tell us, and a solution would likely be more complicated.

ankh

I did it another way; I had both libraries created independently on different machines first, with the older version of Zotero. When the sync possibility came along I tried giving both the same login information, thinking they could both sync to the same file.

Clearly I misunderstood; is there a more complicated suggestion you can suggest that would work to combine the two libraries?

dstillman

If you have different data on each, you can just sync them both to merge them.

ankh

> just sync them

That was my original question. How? "goto 1" for earlier report, above

Clicking the green sync button still produces an error message saying the automatic sync failed and manual sync is required.

(Today the error icon is a round orange circle with an exclamation point; earlier as noted above it was a yellow triangle)


Submitted today as report 793165711, though scrolling through what's being reported there's a lot of unrelated stuff in the report. I can restart Firefox and do it again if that will produce a simpler report.

dstillman

See my comment about debug output above.

ankh

Sorry, already tried the Debug option, just tried it again.

It gives a popup saying 'Sorry, the server returned an error, please try again' when I try to submit the debug output.

I tried the 'report errors' choice again and submitted 777491267 just now, in case that includes something about the failure above.

I'll restart Firefox, heck, I"ll restart the Mac -- and try it again.

Just for the record, right now, from home, I'm using
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3

(I can try all the same steps next week from the Windows XP machine too)

ankh

Same after restarting; exclamation point icon next to sync button; server returned an error when trying to submit debug output.

New error report: 1476780733
This one actually has something obviously related, the last line says:

"no element found" {file: "http://www.zotero.org/repo/report?debug=1" line: 4}]

dstillman

Be sure to clear the output immediately before syncing, sync, and then try to submit the debug output.

ankh

OK, looks much better.
The Preferences panel is opening up now.
It did send a debug output this time:
The Debug ID is D652065219.
And it looks like it's successfully synched with everything on the server now.

dstillman

OK, well, that wasn't intended to fix syncing. You didn't actually clear the debug output before syncing—I just increased the amount of output the server would accept—so I can't really tell anything from what you submitted, but glad to hear it's working anyway. Let us know if you have further problems.

ankh

Ah -- the exclamation point is back by the sync button now.

Popup:
Error
Module Not Initialized

Here is a new error report: 424601107

---------------- history leading up to that one ------

> you didn't actually clear

Well, I should have cleared it, I followed the instructions, what did I miss?

I clicked Preferences,
Clicked the clear button,
saw the Debug contents go away,
made sure Debug was unchecked,
restarted Firefox,
checked the debug, found only a few lines listed,
checked to select Debug
restarted Firefox,
saw more lines showing in the file,
looked, saw Zotero mentioned,
and sent it.

How did I fail?

There was that stretch when clicking Preferences did nothing at all.
And it appears I've created that again.

I just I looked at Prefs,
confirmed the debug checkbox has not been selected since last restart,
saw there is still a lot of material in the debug file listing of lines,
tried to look at it -- nothing.
Closed Preferences,
tried to reopen it -- nothing.

Ah -- the exclamation point is back by the sync button now.

...

(Preferences still won't open; I'll restart Firefox, turn debug off, clear, restart Firefox, and send another Debug).

Thanks for increasing the buffer size there so it would take what it was sending.

I suppose this is a different problem. Tell me if you want a new topic started again.

sshieldsnc

I'm having the same problem, I think. 1375709665
I can upload my library but cannot get the second computer (both Windows XP) to sync. I keep getting a getting started screen when I try to sync. I must be doing something wrong. I get that same exclamation point next to the circular green arrow telling me I have to sync manually. Then when I try, I get the same three-part getting started screen overand over and over.