Cannot login to sync on standalone without losing everything.

seank
edited September 6, 2017
I am trying to enter my email and password in the sync options in preferences. When I do so, it tells me that the last time I synced, it was to a different account (my email address), and that if I sync to my new account (it shows my name, but the account uses the same email address) that all my data will be erased.

I tried going through with it but it did as it said it would and erased everything (I backed it all up just before though). I think the change may have occurred when I upgraded my account.

Is there a way to manually remove the sync account association so that I can re-add the credentials?

Zotero Standalone 5.0.17 Windows 10

Thanks in advance.
  • seank
    I have tried entering both my username and email address for the username field in sync.
  • dstillman
    edited September 7, 2017
    Can you provide a Debug ID for clicking Sync through getting that warning?
  • seank
    DebugID: D1898933565

    The behavior was a little different today:
    When I started Zotero and went to sync options, it appeared as if logged in correctly, but clicking the sync icon gave me the same popup. Preferences had the option to "Unlink Account", which took me back to the credential fields, but the error continued when I tried to log in. With the debug ID above, I am logging in using my username instead of email but it gives the same error.

    I put a screenshot of the dialog window on dropbox.
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/x9m8x3tzduknqw1/zotero_error.jpg?dl=0

    Thank you for looking into this.
  • seank
    Is the link to the online account stored in the same file as the database? Is there any way to restore from a backup but not restore the account association?
  • dstillman
    Sorry, missed your earlier response. Can you install the latest 5.0 Beta and provide another Debug ID from that? (The beta has no real changes from the current version — just an extra debug line that should show what's actually happening here when you get that message.)
  • seank
    Updated to 5.0.18. Debug is run with opening preferences and trying to login.
    Debug ID: D1865075852

    And no worries - I really appreciate how active you are on these forums, and your help with this.
  • dstillman
    That's 5.0.18 — we'd need a Debug ID from the latest 5.0 Beta.
  • seank
    Yep. I'm dumb. Found the beta now. Now with 5.0.19-beta.1+5ec7c97f3

    Debug ID: D855838942

    You're on to something. I see a different userID# for the previous sync. I may have synced to an old user account before upgrading this one.
  • dstillman
    Yes, looks like you last synced with a different account — it's just a bug that shows the wrong username for the previous account. We'll fix that. You can see the username in question by going to https://www.zotero.org/users/[last-user-id], and log into that account to see the data there.

    For now, the only way to switch accounts and keep data in 5.0 is by using export/import (which resets Date Added/Date Modified and loses links to word processor documents). We'll be adding the ability to change usernames soon, though, so it may be easiest to just sync with the old one for now, and you can rename that to match this one (after renaming this one out of the way) later. If you email storage@zotero.org we can move your storage account to that other one.
  • seank
    Thanks. I don't want to lose the Date Added/Modified information so I'll probably just be patient and wait for the ability to switch user accounts. If I really need to get it synced then I'll move my paid storage to the old account as you suggest.

    Thank you for looking into this.
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