Upgrade StorageIs restoring all files or going back to an earlier version an option?
Greetings everyone,
I've tried to figure it out myself, but I could not get it to work. I screwed up pretty hard and need some help - please ask if I can provide more info as I am not sure if I even understood what I did here.
So, I was using a MacBook Air until earlier today and had a big collection in Zotero. 1200+ documents (I dont remember the exact number), most of them were saved with a PDF-File (the PDFs are the important part here). I got a new MacBook Pro now (M2-version) and installed Zotero on there. I tried to sync my devises. That did not really work as I thought it would since a lot of my entries on the new MacBook Pro only had its "surface" (so the name of the author, the name of the document, publication year, and so on) copied, but not the actual PDF-File behind it. I thought it bugged out, so I deleted the entire data base, which included deleting it from the folder where deleted entries go in. So basically the data base on the new Mac was empty, that is what I'm trying to say. I guess most of my PDF-Files were simply saved on the old MacBook Air, not on Zoteros cloud? I deleted Zotero from the new Laptop after that.
Around this time, however, my old MacBook Air started to synchronize itself as well. And I guess it synchronized itself to nothing, because I was left with it having no data at all. It was completely empty, which makes sense if you have synchronization on and I deleted everything on the newer laptop. I tried a few things in full-panic-mode after that, basically within the past 2 hours, reading on forums and FAQs. I somehow got a library on the old Mac again with around 900 entries (so at least 300 are missing, and I don't know why). But the problem is that the overwhelming majority of these entries do not have their PDF-Files behind it. I don't know where to find them (or if I can find them at all?). Assuming everything is gone from that, wouldn't it be possible to restore Zotero to, lets say, yesterday? Or last week? Or last month? All of that would be better than the situation I am in right now.
One last thing: Before my older Mac deleted everything as well, I made a backup from Zotero and saved it on a USB-Stick. This backup includes the "my library.rdf"-file as well as a folder called "files" with 1339 folders in it. I suppose thats from all of the files I had in it earlier (and how I restored the data base with 900 entries in it)?
Anyways - my question is: Is there any way to go back so I can have my old database with all of the PDF-Files in it?
Edit: I've been looking into my online library. The online library has, as one could expect, also around 900 entries in it with little very little PDF-Files in it. Could restoring the online library by the Admins to yesterday help with my issue?
Edit 2: I've also looked into changing the zotero.sqlite-file. I renamed the "zotero.sqlite.111.bak"-file to "zotero.sqlite", it was from March '22. While my library looks more like it used to now, the entries still don't have the PDF-File behind it.
I've tried to figure it out myself, but I could not get it to work. I screwed up pretty hard and need some help - please ask if I can provide more info as I am not sure if I even understood what I did here.
So, I was using a MacBook Air until earlier today and had a big collection in Zotero. 1200+ documents (I dont remember the exact number), most of them were saved with a PDF-File (the PDFs are the important part here). I got a new MacBook Pro now (M2-version) and installed Zotero on there. I tried to sync my devises. That did not really work as I thought it would since a lot of my entries on the new MacBook Pro only had its "surface" (so the name of the author, the name of the document, publication year, and so on) copied, but not the actual PDF-File behind it. I thought it bugged out, so I deleted the entire data base, which included deleting it from the folder where deleted entries go in. So basically the data base on the new Mac was empty, that is what I'm trying to say. I guess most of my PDF-Files were simply saved on the old MacBook Air, not on Zoteros cloud? I deleted Zotero from the new Laptop after that.
Around this time, however, my old MacBook Air started to synchronize itself as well. And I guess it synchronized itself to nothing, because I was left with it having no data at all. It was completely empty, which makes sense if you have synchronization on and I deleted everything on the newer laptop. I tried a few things in full-panic-mode after that, basically within the past 2 hours, reading on forums and FAQs. I somehow got a library on the old Mac again with around 900 entries (so at least 300 are missing, and I don't know why). But the problem is that the overwhelming majority of these entries do not have their PDF-Files behind it. I don't know where to find them (or if I can find them at all?). Assuming everything is gone from that, wouldn't it be possible to restore Zotero to, lets say, yesterday? Or last week? Or last month? All of that would be better than the situation I am in right now.
One last thing: Before my older Mac deleted everything as well, I made a backup from Zotero and saved it on a USB-Stick. This backup includes the "my library.rdf"-file as well as a folder called "files" with 1339 folders in it. I suppose thats from all of the files I had in it earlier (and how I restored the data base with 900 entries in it)?
Anyways - my question is: Is there any way to go back so I can have my old database with all of the PDF-Files in it?
Edit: I've been looking into my online library. The online library has, as one could expect, also around 900 entries in it with little very little PDF-Files in it. Could restoring the online library by the Admins to yesterday help with my issue?
Edit 2: I've also looked into changing the zotero.sqlite-file. I renamed the "zotero.sqlite.111.bak"-file to "zotero.sqlite", it was from March '22. While my library looks more like it used to now, the entries still don't have the PDF-File behind it.
Restoring to the zotero.sqlite.111.bak database would give you your data from when you upgraded to Zotero 6 in March (and zotero.sqlite.bak or zotero.sqlite.1.bak might give you data from the last couple days, depending on when exactly you made these deletions), but attachment files are stored separately, and those would be gone.