how to retrieve items after computer upgrade

sheila.quinn
IT performed a software upgrade and did not copy the zotero directory to the new computer. Logging in to the zotero website shows no items in the library, yet word documents still display the items from the original library. Is there a way to access and restore them, say, through the API?
  • adamsmith
    I'm sorry to say, no. The API interfaces with the version of your library on the Zotero server, which apparently is empty.
    There's currently no easy way to get items from a document back into Zotero--the only thing I can think of -- if we're talking about a fairly large library, would be to install MLZ Zotero (www.citationstylist.org) in a separate Firefox profile, and then use it's exacting embedded references feature.
    You can then sync that to your regular Zotero account and back to your regular Zotero version. Probably not worth it for <50 references, but if we're talking hundreds this would be the way to go.
    http://citationstylist.org/2014/05/03/multilingual-zotero-extracting-embedded-references/
  • sheila.quinn
    edited August 16, 2014
    I'm confused. If the items are no longer in zotero, how does word resolve the URIs? (Example:ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM {"citationID":"2b9hmc20ke","citationItems":[{"label":"page","uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4vmK0ksF/items/H5J3UHDR"]},{"label":"page","uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4vmK0ksF/items/B58SDH9V"]},{"label":"page","uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4vmK0ksF/items/3R72FKEA"]},{"label":"page","uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4vmK0ksF/items/DVT3Q7QR"]},{"label":"page","uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/4vmK0ksF/items/BTRH2C5T"]}]} )

    All of these somehow still resolve to readable bibliographic references despite the fact that our library appears to be empty.
  • adamsmith
    it doesn't. (And those URIs point to a local version of Zotero, indicating that you never synced. Nothing ever existed at that URL, it's merely an identifier)

    The citation field includes a just text version of the cite that you're seeing. By default it also includes embedded citation data (which is what MLZ would be using), though it doesn't look like those citations do if that's indeed the full Zotero field.
  • sheila.quinn
    OK, thanks. Looking further down in the document.xml component of the word file, we can see the information that appears in the references. It sounds like MLZ will do the trick, thanks again. These references represent several years of work and it will be great not to have to reconstruct them manually.
  • adamsmith
    obviously a backup of the old harddisk would do the trick, too, if you have that (and would in many ways be better, e.g. include attachments and notes, neither of which you can restore from the Word document)
  • sheila.quinn
    Update: Using a recovery tool, IT was able to recover a number of possible candidates for deleted zotero.sqlite and .bak files. However, none of them appears to be an intact sqlite data store (i.e., sqlite3 will not open any of them). So we are trying to get MLZ working. After many wasted hours dealing with word 2013 we finally got addins to appear in the toolbar and have installed the MLZ plugin, created a shared library called soqgroup, and followed the directions (as far as we can tell) for setting the "Document Preferences" to get MLZ to recreate the items. However, it's not happening. Any thoughts on what we may have missed?
  • aurimas
    Are you getting any errors? Can you submit a Debug Log for an attempt to extract the references? https://www.zotero.org/support/debug_output
  • sheila.quinn
    Sorry for the delay responding Here is the debug information:

    Debug output has been sent to the Zotero server.

    The Debug ID is D1615201733

    Thanks for all of your help....
  • dstillman Zotero Team
    (3)(+0047824): Integration: Retrieved 1 fields in 0.037; 27.027027027027028 fields/second

    (3)(+0000003): Integration: Updated session data for 1 fields in 0; Infinity fields/second

    (3)(+0000005): Integration: Indices of new citations

    (3)(+0000000):

    (3)(+0000000): Integration: Indices of updated citations

    (3)(+0000000):

    (3)(+0000007): Integration: style.updateUncitedItems(({}))

    (5)(+0000055): SELECT itemID FROM items WHERE itemID IN ()
    [JavaScript Error: "Parameters provided for query without placeholders [QUERY: SELECT itemID FROM items WHERE itemID IN ()]"]

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