duplicated items after syncing

SinaBock
Hello

The last few days we´ve had some trouble with syncing our group library. After syncing a subcollection nearly every item has been duplicated, some of them have even been trippled.

There appears to be no difference between the items except their versioning. For example there is one (trippled) item – timestamp of the first version Friday: 11. 11. 2011 - 17:33:54, timestamp of the second version: Saturday, 28. April 2012 - 22:36:19 and timestamp of the third version: Sunday, 29.April 2012 - 15:09:08.

At first I merged the duplicates and synced them with the server. Duplicates appeared again. I then deleted the subcollection from the server, merged the local duplicates and sync ´d them with the server . That hasn´t made a difference.

I have tested and synced another subcollection and wonder why everything seems to have gone well.

These are the two message that are shown in the Error Report

[JavaScript Error: "gBrowser.addProgressListener was called with a second argument, which is not supported. See bug 608628." {file: "chrome://browser/content/tabbrowser.xml" line: 1896}]

[JavaScript Error: "Kein Element gefunden" {file: "chrome://browser/content/hiddenWindow.xul" line: 3}]

After searching the forum for Bug 608628 it says that the bug is already fixed in the actual zotero release. I use Firefox 12.0 and Zotero 3.0.8

Does anyone have an idea how to handle this?
  • dstillman
    After syncing a subcollection nearly every item has been duplicated, some of them have even been trippled.
    There's no way for Zotero syncing to create duplicates on its own. The only way that can happen is if you have multiple versions of the item in your library or in another synced library, generally after using export/import. For example, if you export your library via RDF and someone else imports it and adds those items to the group library, you'd get duplicates, because the items are actually completely separate and would all get synced to every computer. Repeated imports can also create duplicates, even if the items look the same (albeit with different timestamps) in different collections.

    I'm also not sure why you keep referring to syncing a subcollection—all you can do in Zotero is sync everything, not specific collections.
    After searching the forum for Bug 608628 it says that the bug is already fixed in the actual zotero release.
    I'm not sure what forum thread you're referring to, but that error message doesn't have anything to do with Zotero. If it shows up in other posts, that's irrelevant.
    I use Firefox 12.0
    It's unrelated to your current issue, but this is an outdated version of Firefox and likely has security holes. Upgrade to the latest version (currently 16.0.2) and make sure you have auto-updating enabled.
  • brgdawson
    Hello

    I moved from an old mac to a new and wanted to transfer my Zotero files. Unfortunately, after syncing everything is duplicated. I exported the library from the old laptop and imported it on to the new, but when I pressed "sync" everything has been duplicated. Is there a means of mass merging duplicates? And is there a way of avoiding this in the future?

    Thanks very much.
  • dstillman
    edited January 3, 2014
    Export is not meant for transferring libraries to another computer — that's what created the duplicate items. See my explanation above. All you need to do is sync (or, if you don't use syncing, transfer your entire Zotero data directory).

    You can easily recover by sorting the middle pane by Date Added and deleting all the imported items, which will be grouped together, in one go. Then empty the trash.
  • brgdawson
    Great. Thanks very much for the help.
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