Attachments missing from standalone!

Gesh · October 29, 2015

REPORT ID:468196262

Hi there,

So I've been having a big problem with my standalone zotero. All the attachments disappeared in all my collections.

One of the collections is a group one - which is synced to an online zotero account. I have not synced this since the disappearement, as I'm worried syncing will take away the attachment in the server version of zotero too.

I need to restore this otherwise 10 days of work is wasted! How can I get my attachments back?

dstillman · October 29, 2015

Do you mean that the attachment items are gone, or that the attached files are no longer accessible?

dstillman · October 29, 2015

Also, could you take a screenshot of what you're describing, upload it somewhere, and post a link here?

Gesh · October 29, 2015

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the quick response! I mean that the attached items are no longer accessible via zotero standalone (but they are on the online account).

All the references had an attachment, and there'd be a blue mark - now it's an empty blue circle on the left. I have no idea what's happened! Is there a way get the files to attach back?

The screenshot is below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0ZXpKTxJBtWNUNHcnZOdXdrSDA/view?usp=sharing

Thanks!

dstillman · October 29, 2015

OK, so just the files are missing, not the attachment items themselves. And are these linked attachments or stored attachments? (Is there a link of chain in their icons?)

There's no way in Zotero itself for a file to be deleted without the item, so either the files were never on this computer to begin with, in which case you'd need to see Files Not Syncing, or something happened to either the 'storage' directory within Zotero data directory (for stored files) or a directory elsewhere on your computer (for linked files). (For example, if you were using linked files via ZotFile and your hard drive configuration changed, the paths may not longer match.)

Gesh · November 1, 2015

Hi Dan, thanks again.

I am feeling a bit confused because this has never happened before.Yes, just the files are missing. So when I drop down an item, the file name will be i.e. example.pdf and when i click on it, it'll say:

"The attached file could not be found.

It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero"

The files have always been on the computer and still are, but a colleague of mine cleaned the folder (which may be reason?). I am not using ZotFile..

If I now sync my standalone for the group library (which doesn't have the file attached anymore) - will that then take the attachments away from the online group library or would this be a method of restoring what's missing from my standalone?

thanks

dstillman · November 1, 2015

I'm not sure what you mean by "cleaned the folder" — if you mean Zotero's 'storage' folder, that should never be touched manually. Regardless, if you're getting the above message, the files aren't where they originally were, if they were actually on this computer. The only way for a file to become unavailable is for it to be deleted outside of Zotero.

If you provide a Debug ID for an attempt to open a file, I can tell you exactly where Zotero is looking. (You can also click View Output and look at the bottom of the debug output yourself.)

But no, syncing won't cause the file to be deleted anywhere else. Zotero only syncs explicit deletions you make within Zotero itself, which isn't the case here.

If the file is available online, you could do a Reset File Sync History (but not the other options!) from the Sync->Reset pane of the Zotero preferences, but it'd be better to figure out how the files got deleted.