Upgrade StorageSlow 0 kB file syncs
First of all thanks for developing this great software - it is very helpful and I am very happy to have it!
Our lab is using one single Zotero account, not a group, meaning that usually several computers are logged on to the same account simultaneously. I know that this is not how it's supposed to be handled, but for administrative reasons even though it is not expensive we cannot simply pay for Zotero storage and use a group, which we would obviously prefer. We have set up our own WebDAV storage and have been using this successfully for quite a while now, the only (unavoidable) problem being the occasional conflict during syncing.
Recently, however, when syncing files, Zotero is regularly syncing a large number (usually >3500, sometimes only ~1500) of our >4800 attached files. When holding the mouse over the progress bar, it shows that is is transferring 0 kB (e.g. "Downloads: 0 kB remaining (x/3803 files)"). As far as I understand, this is most likely due to the mtime being different between the file stored locally and the one on the WebDAV server. This is not a major issue, but the computer slows down considerably during each sync, which makes working with Firefox (we're using the Firefox extension) rather painful. Could this be caused by the clock set wrongly on one of the computers? Would you have any idea how we can get rid of this problem?
Sorry for bothering you about a problem which most likely comes from not using Zotero as it is supposed to be used and thanks in advance for your help!
Our lab is using one single Zotero account, not a group, meaning that usually several computers are logged on to the same account simultaneously. I know that this is not how it's supposed to be handled, but for administrative reasons even though it is not expensive we cannot simply pay for Zotero storage and use a group, which we would obviously prefer. We have set up our own WebDAV storage and have been using this successfully for quite a while now, the only (unavoidable) problem being the occasional conflict during syncing.
Recently, however, when syncing files, Zotero is regularly syncing a large number (usually >3500, sometimes only ~1500) of our >4800 attached files. When holding the mouse over the progress bar, it shows that is is transferring 0 kB (e.g. "Downloads: 0 kB remaining (x/3803 files)"). As far as I understand, this is most likely due to the mtime being different between the file stored locally and the one on the WebDAV server. This is not a major issue, but the computer slows down considerably during each sync, which makes working with Firefox (we're using the Firefox extension) rather painful. Could this be caused by the clock set wrongly on one of the computers? Would you have any idea how we can get rid of this problem?
Sorry for bothering you about a problem which most likely comes from not using Zotero as it is supposed to be used and thanks in advance for your help!
On some computers checking for locally modified files can be slow. Do you have the Zotero data directory on a local hard drive, or on something like a network share? Also make sure you're using auto-sync, which does the checks less often. (When you click the Sync button manually, Zotero checks each local file.)
Also check to see if you have a lot of missing files by looking for an empty (instead of full) blue circle in the Attachments column in the middle pane. That's probably the most common cause of this. When files are missing, Zotero is smart enough not to check for them remotely if another computer hasn't done a file sync, but every time another computer synced it would check the WebDAV server for all locally missing files.
I had gathered before that Zotero doesn't actually sync those files and is simply checking for changes and that this might be triggered by the attached files having a different mtime on the WebDAV server and locally. Therefore my question if this might be caused by a wrong time setting on one of the computers running Zotero. Interestingly, syncing once (meaning that Zotero checks all the files) does not help, the next time it syncs it still goes through the files again.