[5.0 Beta] Deleted files on WebDAV

dstillman
This discussion was created from comments split from: Zotero 5.0 Beta.
  • schmunzel
    Hey all. Im currently using the Beta and am *mostly* happy with it.
    At times it is somewhat sluggish under win 10 and I detected that zotero is constantly writing to the harddrive with around 3 to 5 MB / sec
    As it is currently not syncing it shouldnt have any business doing that .. ?
    other than that : YAY
  • schmunzel
    Oh and it is the second time now that it happened to me - I was installing zotero 5.0 Beta standalone on a computer and afterwards in my webdav only a single file was left. the other 11thousand have been deleted. I believe, that this might have been the hard disc activity the client displayed.
    Thankfully this is as of now just extremely annoying, since I figured out how to undo this, it just will take several hours of time. However Id be very interested in the why and what I can possibly do to avoid this in the future?
    regards
    schmunzel
  • schmunzel
    just to update this as I tinker around.
    As soon as I start the Zotero Beta standalone it starts syncing with the webdav.
    As far as I can tell it deletes all the files from webdav that arnt on the machine that started zotero. Why is that ?
  • dstillman
    What do you mean by that? Do you mean that the items aren't in Zotero on that computer, or that the files aren't?
  • schmunzel
    the files are not on the computer, as I sync those files only on demand.
    Its as if the option restore to zotero server was selected
  • schmunzel
    which I obviously did not do
  • dstillman
    Not having files downloaded certainly shouldn't cause them to be removed from WebDAV. Can you provide a Debug ID for Zotero startup (using the "Enable after restart" option) that demonstrates it deleting one or more files?
  • schmunzel
    d393342633 Im sry its rather long
  • dstillman
    edited June 12, 2017
    Hmm, but you have all items locally? For example, if you paste 4TH8DR8Q into the Zotero search bar in All Fields & Tags mode from the root of My Library, you see an attachment?

    Zotero deletes orphaned files on WebDAV after a sync once a week, but it should only delete when the item key from a remote file created more than a week ago doesn't match a local item. The presence of the local file shouldn't matter at all.

    (The reason you've only seen this for new installs is that Zotero stores the last time it purged orphaned files in the extensions.zotero.lastWebDAVOrphanPurge hidden pref, and only checks every week. You should be able to trigger this again by clearing that pref.)
  • dstillman
    OK, this was definitely happening, and looks like it has been for the entire 5.0 beta period, so, thanks for reporting! Should be fixed in the latest build, 212.
  • schmunzel
    cool thks for the heads up :)
  • mridhas
    Hello sir,
    I am using zotero 5.0-beta.220+5aaefff1d and am facing a problem of similar kind.
    I sync my zotero data files using webdav. But whenever I install zotero 5 in another pc and try to sync it, it automatically deletes all the data from the webdav account and, as a result, is unable to download any of the data files to the new computer.

    The only way I could re-upload data to the webdav server is by using the "reset file sync history" option in preferences/sync/reset, although I am afraid of syncing to zotero in my new computer.

    It happened in the past, and has happened with the above mentioned build of zotero. But since I saw you have mentioned about the problem being fixed in build 212, I am unsure why this problem happened with me. Could you kindly help me resolve this permanently?

    P.S. I tried resetting the extensions.zotero.lastWebDAVOrphanPurge option, but that didn't work.
  • schmunzel
    For me the Problem has been solved and currently I am using 219.
    Now either you are using an old Beta Version still on one computer or another or a regression has been introduced with 220.
    are you sure all zotero versions you are currently running are post 212??
  • dstillman
    Yeah, this shouldn't happen with current builds. If you think it is, we'd need a Debug ID that shows it happening.
  • mridhas
    edited June 25, 2017
    The zotero version that I had in the new computer was 219. Still I had faced the said problem.
    Later, when I deleted the entire database from the new computer and upgraded zotero5 to build 220, it showed a new problem.

    While trying to setup sync using webdav, zotero threw an error saying "Please enter a valid webdav url" [https://www.dropbox.com/s/mjqjel8mr9euh7v/1_webdav_error.png?dl=0]. I am quite sure the url is perfectly fine, because that is the same url I have been using for quite some time in my older computer.
    Then after closing zotero and reopening it, I went to settings and clicked "Verify server". This time, it said that "file sync is successfully set up" [https://www.dropbox.com/s/dldi7xt5r150r1q/2_webdav_success.png?dl=0] and sync started successfully.

    But after syncing around 90% of the data, zotero sync threw an error. I have already submitted an error report with id: 690132833.

    Kindly help me resolve this problem.
  • mridhas
    Please note that later when I closed zotero and reopened it one more time, sync completed successfully.

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