Syncing issue:

Report ID: 1550520002

Not sure how to recreate this issue, but I just noticed my Zotero has not been syncing for 3 days now. When I try syncing it gives this error: "Cannot change parent item of annotation" and since I'm constantly adding papers/files, it's unclear which ones created this issue.

  • Can you provide a Debug ID for a sync that produces this?
  • edited May 4, 2021
    Hi dstillman, I submitted another report right after this one (still in moderation phase) with a debug ID and more information
  • We'll need it in this thread.
  • D1908785207
  • You should be able to sync now.

    This would've happened after using "Convert Linked Files to Stored Files" locally on PDFs with annotations and then trying to sync.
  • Awesome it works, and that makes sense. I turned off the option to sync automatically because it felt like it was 1) interfering with the process of linking/uploading (I would get messages to choose how to resolve conflicts) - which coincides with what you said and 2) the syncing process seemed to mess with trying to type out notes in the highlight/annotation section (the text would refresh on every sync attempt and I would repeatedly lose all my typing).

    Glad to know the source of the issue and I'll be more careful. Thank you!
  • interfering with the process of linking/uploading
    Not sure what you mean by "linking/uploading", but I'd strongly recommend turning auto-sync back on and simply reporting any problems you encounter. You're much less likely to run into problems, and much less likely to accidentally lose data, with auto-sync enabled.

    The annotation cursor position issue during syncs should already be fixed.
  • @joelem: Also, to be clear, there's no need to be careful — this was just a bug. Nothing you did wrong at all. I was just letting you know what triggered it.
  • edited May 4, 2021
    Sorry I meant that right now I have a zotfile/dropbox set up, but since the beta version of the ios + annotation tools I've been exploring moving my library to zotero's sync. So when using "convert linked to stored files", the auto-sync kicks in and I start getting conflict messages (I think that's how the original sync error occurred). Would you suggest maybe turning auto-sync off for migrating my entire library back to stored files and then syncing it all up to zotero? Or how would I go about this process if a portion of the linked files have annotations on them?
  • There shouldn't be conflicts unless you actually made changes to those same attachments elsewhere. If you're fully in sync and can reproduce getting a conflict after running that function, we'd want to see a Debug ID for that sync.

    But this particular error had nothing to do with conflicts. It was just a bug in which the server didn't account for a change made by that function.
  • I see. I'll be cautiously migrating my library over to zotero today, so I'll keep the debug log on and will report if any issues come up again. Thanks for the info and the help!
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