Library disappeared

cohen_tom
Today as Zotero launched I was taken to a webpage congratulating me on successfully installing Zotero and was presented with a library containing only the Quickstart guide. I have conducted an extensive search for the zotero.sqlite file containing all my references (including retrieving back-up versions from the previous two working days) but have found nothing that contains any of my data.
I am mystified (and quite distressed!) If anyone knows the answer to this, I'd be most grateful.
  • adamsmith
    When did you last have Zotero working correctly?
    Anything unusual about your set-up? E.g. did you ever move your Zotero folder to a custom location?
    Which OS and how did you search for zotero.sqlite

    The message you're getting is a first-run message - Zotero would only produce this with a completely fresh database.
  • cohen_tom
    Hello Adam and thanks for responding so promptly.
    Zotero was working fine for me on Friday.
    The set-up is a little complex: we're hot-desking and there is no access to local drives to I set my directory on a networked drive.
    Things were further complicated by my having manually to install the upgrade from 3.0.3 to 3.0.7 (because automatic upgrade kept failing) so I had the different versions of Zotero in separate folders but the new version was reading the sqlite file from the old folder quite happily.
    OS: XP Professional
    Searching: used the Windows search tool, looking for *.sqlite across all drives to which I have access.
    The very peculiar thing is that the .sqlite files from both Friday and Thursday seem equally devoid of references - Zotero was working fine on both days.
    I am thoroughly bemused. I am right that the file that most matters is zotero.sqlite?
    Best wishes
    Tom
  • adamsmith
    edited June 25, 2012
    yes, zotero.sqlite is what matters.
    Hosting on networked drives is generally risky so this is almost certainly the reason this happened - I don't see how Zotero could produce this behavior by itself - what you're seeing is Zotero's reaction to finding a completely empty data folder.

    You have checked (in the Zotero preferences under advanced) that Zotero is actually pointing where it should? Including after trying to restore from the old .sqlites?

    Edit: It sounds like you have seen this, but just in case:
    http://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data
  • dstillman
    The very peculiar thing is that the .sqlite files from both Friday and Thursday seem equally devoid of references
    What are the sizes? An empty zotero.sqlite database is around 1MB. A database with data should be more.
  • cohen_tom
    Thanks Dan and Adam
    All of the files are in the region of 1MB and I've done some searching of the files using Notepad for text strings to check for the presence of references, all of which returned a blank.
    I'm pretty sure that Zotero is pointing in the right place and have tested this by inserting a new reference then checking the associated file for a suitable text string in the relevant file.
    A question: is it conceivable that Zotero might unilaterally have relocated my sqlite file to the local drive whilst I was working?
    Yours in hope
    Tom
  • dstillman
    edited June 26, 2012
    No. Zotero never moves the database file.
  • cohen_tom
    One last hope: as I mentioned, I'm working in a hot-desking environment. Though the IT people here assure me that nothing is taken from the local drive at the end of a session, I am nonetheless finding that the profile directory (where Zotero would store files by default) appears at every computer where I log on, including files that were updated on days prior to my using a given PC. This makes me wonder whether Zotero writes files to the profile directory as part of launching. If so, where might the source files be (and what would they be called?)
    Thanks again for your help.

    Tom
  • dstillman
    I'm not really clear on what you're asking. Zotero writes to its data directory on startup, yes.
  • cohen_tom
    Hello Dan
    Sorry for a lack of precision in my question.
    Things have now moved on and I have a different line of inquiry: I have been drafting in Word and had produced a bibliography that drew from my Zotero database before the qlite file went missing. Do you know of any way I could recreate the Zotero database (at least in part) using information within the Word document?
    Best wishes
    Tom
  • adamsmithpresentatio
    Do you know of any way I could recreate the Zotero database (at least in part) using information within the Word document?
    That's unfortunately not possible at this time, though it might be in the future.
  • cohen_tom
    Reply to jocurin:
    Thanks for this suggestion. I'm reasonably sure this is not it since no one else in the team is using Zotero. Even if they were, though, their databases would by default be saved within folders associated with their user name. So they could only overwrite my files either deliberately after finding them or by logging on as me. Both of these seem slender possibilities.
    But what actually happened remains a mystery.
    Tom
  • cohen_tom
    Reply to Adam Smith:
    Thanks for replying. Tant pis, as the French say. Glad I'm soon returning to a world where we work on our C-drives and have control over back-up!
    Tom
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