Syncing to new device does not update Saved Searches

I recently installed Zotero on my PC after having run it on my Mac successfully for some time. In my library I had a saved search that was working perfectly, but when my library synchronised down to my PC, whilst the Saved Search item came down, the contents of the search was not updated. If I then added another entry to my library that matched the criteria of he search it was put in correctly.

Is there any fix for this or have I done something wrong?

Thanks
  • If the search includes an Attachment Content condition, you likely just needed to wait a little while for the full-text content to be indexed on the new computer. Simply adding an item locally wouldn't have an effect on the operation of the saved search.
  • edited February 26, 2020
    Hi there. No that's not the problem unfortunately; checked this morning and my Saved Search is still not populated. The only two things that are in there are the two items that I added after installing it on my second computer. It's not updating with existing items at all. It's like it's keeping a "last added item date" and only updating the search with items added after this date.

    I manually made a duplicate Saved Search with the same criteria and it populated fine with all the documents, so something is definitely up. There's a bug there.
  • Are you using Attachment Content conditions? Because then the issue is almost certainly as I describe. A newly added PDF will be indexed immediately locally and will show up in the search. A synced PDF won't.

    First, you need to make sure you actually have "Sync full-text content" enabled in the Sync pane of the preferences. And then you need to wait for the indexing to happen in the background. That takes place while your computer is idle, so if you've been using it actively or it's been asleep, that might not yet have happened.
  • edited February 26, 2020
    (You can test this simply by clicking the Reindex button in the right-hand pane of an item that's not yet showing up.)
  • edited February 26, 2020
    @ARKB: Actually, wait, you're saying that a second search with the exact same conditions returns different results? If so, what if you restart Zotero?
  • Yes I made a second Saved Search with the exact same criteria and it populates perfectly.

    Yes, Sync Full Text Content is on in preferences
    Yes the conditions are all Attachment Content
    No Computer didn't sleep overnight

  • And if you restart Zotero?
  • edited February 26, 2020
    OK, that's worse. Now BOTH saved searches are only showing the two new items I added. All the older ones that were in the new search are now gone.
  • If you click on one of the items that's not showing up, what does it say for Indexed in the right-hand pane? Can you match these items in Everything mode in the Zotero search bar, using a quoted exact phrase from the full text that doesn't appear elsewhere in the item's metadata?
  • edited February 26, 2020
    I can't see any "Index" item on the right. All I see are tabs for Info, Notes, Tags and Related and I can't see any "Indexed" inside any of those.

    Re the second point, should I be able to grab any sequence of words in the PDF content and search using Everything and expect it to appear? If so, that isn't working. If I choose a single word (That I can't see in any meta data) it doesn't appear either but some other results do. Note, this is a PDF document.

    NOTE: I am on Windows at the moment and my original machine is on Mac (Maybe there's a crossplatform issue or something).

    As an aside, when I searched in the bar and got some results (But not the one I was looking for) I noticed some are greyed out. What does this mean?

  • I can't see any "Index" item on the right.
    You need to click on the attachment item, not the parent item.
    As an aside, when I searched in the bar and got some results (But not the one I was looking for) I noticed some are greyed out. What does this mean?
    Those are context rows — items that don't match the search but which are displayed because they're parent, child, or sibling items of a matching item.
  • edited February 26, 2020
    Thanks. OK, so the one that wasn't returning the multi-word result says Queued. I went and checked the others I expected to be in the Saved Search and they are all 'Queued' except for one which is 'No'. As expected the newly added that appear ones all say 'Yes' for indexed.

    It is normal for indexing to be queued for this long?
  • Whenever you're next going to be away from your computer for a few minutes, start debug output logging and then leave it running while the computer is idle. After 5 minutes or whenever you return, submit the output and provide the Debug ID, and we can see what's happening.
  • Will do. Thanks heaps for your help.
  • edited February 26, 2020
    OK, submitted. Id is D1085546236. I enabled with restart and let it sit there for a while.
  • edited February 26, 2020
    OK, that shows 41 items being successfully indexed. Examples: KZSV7VGY, TECHASPT, 73CF5ALD — paste into the Zotero search bar in All Fields & Tags mode to see.
  • OK that is really weird. I went and checked and yes they are all showing now. Be nice to figure out why? Could it have been multiple restarts because I did restart when enabling so I could catch all the debug info.
  • Restarting may have helped, but it shouldn't be necessary. It's possible the idle timer just didn't detect when your computer was idle overnight for some reason.
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