Lost Collections after importing

Deschatjes · December 15, 2015

Hi
I had a computer fail, and before it died, I exported my Zotero files using the zotero function to a *.rdf file.
I then installed zotero on my backup computer and imported the file.
But I've lost all my painstakingly curated collections in the process.
I did name the export file "my zotero library" instead of "my library" could that be the cause or is there another reason?
How do I get my collections back?

Thanks
Nadine

Michael.Logies · December 15, 2015

I justed tested exporting/importing a collection using the Zotero-RDF-Format, because I want to copy some collections from one (big) Firefoxprofile to another (empty one). The RDF-Format is quite unreliable (I lost the contents of notes), which is documented:
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/transferring_a_library
At the moment I don`t see a solution for your or my problem. You can only go back to a backup, which means a backup of the whole Firefoxprofile your Zoterodata has been sitting in.

adamsmith · December 15, 2015

Well, we do say there's data loss, but that should really be quite minor, i.e. one or two fields of more obscure item types getting lost. Neither notes nor collections should be lost. The main reason we warn against RDF as backup is that it breaks both sync and existing Word documents, i.e. Michael, for your purposes it should work just fine and we can probably make this work.

@Nadine -- are you positive you exported to Zotero RDF? Zotero does export to other RDF formats (e.g. bibliontology) and none of them support collections.
If you open the RDF file you exported with a text editor (notepad, textedit), you should see several passages starting with something like
<z:Collection rdf:about="#collection_13">
<dc:title>Name of a Collection</dc:title>

towards the bottom of the file. Do you?

@Michael -- since you're experiencing a somewhat different problem, could you start a new thread so this doesn't get confusing? And could you confirm the problem is just with Standalone notes (i.e. notes not attached to any item)? Because I can reproduce that, while child notes work fine.