Zotero has duplicated my folders and references on syncing

shakp
Zotero syncing has worked well on my laptop, but when after thre weeks of working away I attempted to syn on my desktop, everything seems to be there, but Zotero has duplicated each of my collections. I'm afraid tht if I sync again on my laptop, I will get further duplicaiotn, and so on...
  • dstillman
    If you sync separate libraries, the two libraries are merged—Zotero (currently, at least) has no way of knowing that the items in one are identical to those in the other, since it doesn't use the item data as the primary point of comparison. In normal usage, you should never get duplicates.

    If you have identical libraries on each, you can fix this easily with the following steps. Otherwise, you'll need to delete the duplicates manually or wait for upcoming duplicate detection.

    On the laptop, before re-opening Zotero, make a backup of your Zotero data directory. Start Firefox and, before opening the Zotero pane, go to Tools->Add-ons->Extensions->Zotero, right-click on Zotero, choose Preferences, Sync->Reset, Restore to Server. This will replace the server data with the laptop's library, which hasn't been duplicated.

    On the desktop, you should probably just (back up and) delete the 'zotero' data directory, and then open Firefox and let Zotero pull down the other library. You could follow the same steps as above and choose Restore from Server, but that will leave an entire 'storage' directory full of empty attachments.

    Be aware that, if you open the Zotero pane on either, Zotero will sync automatically.
  • shakp
    Many thanks. That's enormously helpful. I now understand both the cause of the problem and its solution!
    Kevin
Sign In or Register to comment.