New PC Can't Sync, Password recover "email not sent," library not registered, user HORRIFIED

RenMontano

Hi All,

I recently had a computer fail and am setting up on a new system. When I installed Zotero on new system, it told me that I did not have sync set up. I went back into the old system, and saw I had a user name, but no log in access. I tried EVERY email I have and was messaged "email not sent... perhaps you were using Zotero without an account. Create an account." So I created an account, through my institution, and tried to sync my account from old system into Zotero cloud for log in and retrieval to new system. I am horrified to read the message that since I deauthorized the old username that was not really an account, in order to use new log in so that I can sync, Zotero will erase MY ENTIRE LIBRARY (oh dear gods no please) because the new user profile can't share my old user profile (without login). Can someone please help me! ...I do see that there is a little blurb about how I can save everything on a drive with Zotero shut down, and move the (program files?) to another system... but then what?

Thank you for any advice anyone is able to offer. This is THE WORST week and I do not want to lose five year's of dissertation lit review.

dstillman

You're saying you had a username entered on the old computer but then created and switched to another account?

When you switch accounts, Zotero warns you that it will need to delete all local data for the current account, requires you to check a checkbox saying "Remove all data for “[current account]” from this computer", and says to make sure you either have uploaded any data to the current account before continuing or have a backup of your Zotero data directory.

Assuming you did one of those things, you can restore by either switching back to the previous account or restoring from the backup.

If not, I'm afraid there's nothing to be done.

since I deauthorized the old username that was not really an account

To be clear, it would've been a real account. This only happens if you've set up syncing with a given account previously. The thing to do would've been to try to reset the password using the actual username that was entered, and, if you no longer had access to the associated email address, email us at support@zotero.org for help. If you do that now, we can at least see when the old account was last synced.

adamsmith

(FWIW, this reads to me like they stopped before confirming the message and deleting the library, in which case nothing would be lost?)

dstillman

Oh, I think you're right. In that case, @RenMontano, email us with the username of the old account and we can go from there.