Broken Refernce after Upgrading

q

I have just applied the latest Zotero updates, and then worked on an old document I created when still using version 1. I got the usual warning of upgrading the document, and refreshed the references. I then noticed that one reference was completely wrong: rather than referring to an article, it actually links to a child note (!) of a different document.

I have tried the same document on a different machine, and the same happens (same substitution). Other than this reference, everything seems to work fine. I'm not fretting over a single reference (it's easily changed), but how can I be confident that there are not other errors in the database/other documents of mine with references that do not work?

(I've checked the database integrity in Zotero, and it seems fine).

dstillman

Did you upgrade this document on the same computer you originally created it on? If you upgrade it on a different, synced computer instead, you might end up with mismatched citations. (This will no longer be an issue going forward, but it is an issue coming from 1.0.)

q

It's the same database (copied to a different machine), as my database is too big to sync.

dstillman

Can you send an excerpt of the pre-upgrade document that contains the to-be-mismatched citation (and nothing else would be fine) to support@zot....org, with a link to this thread?

dstillman

Thanks. Next, enable debug logging in the Advanced pane of the Zotero prefs and make two quick edits in Zotero: one a new child note attached to the correct original item and the other a quick edit to the child note that's being incorrectly substituted. It'd be helpful if you could make each edit a clear marker, e.g. "==correct==" and "==incorrect==". Then submit the debug output to the server and post the Debug ID here.

(This is just an ugly way to get the id of each item. We'll add some mechanism to make this easier in the future.)

q

The Debug ID is D371224299. Thanks!

dstillman

The itemID referenced in the document citation is definitely that of the the child note. If you have a copy of the 1.0 database and can upload it to the DB Repair Tool and e-mail us the Upload ID (ignoring the download links the tool provides), we could check whether the items had those same IDs in 1.0. There shouldn't be any way for them to change, though.

You're certain you never transferred the item between systems using export/import and then cited that transferred item? Because that would do the trick.

q

I'm trying to locate an old backup, but even without this, I know that I have added the child note to Zotero after creating the document (although before I recently moved to Zotero 2).

I've always used the same Zotero folder and moved it from computer to computer.

q

I have e-mailed the Upload ID.

I have also installed 1.0 using the old database on another computer, and opened the document in question. I get an error that a reference no longer exists, and Zotero offers to delete it. This is the reference that caused problems.

Assuming that the databases are fine, I can imagine that over the course of the year (I wrote the document about a year ago) and updating it now, I must have had a duplicate entry for the item, and deleted the wrong one. (I'm a bit puzzled, because I try to mark duplicates rather than delete them, just in case I have used the reference in question, and don't want to break the references [I'm hoping/waiting for a merge function in a future version of Zotero]; perhaps I've just done that).

Thanks for all the support!