Synchronizing can wipe out a collection's contents

rewendt3
I synchronize my database among three computers all using 2.0b6.3. Twice now, I have added a reference on one computer and forgotten to sync another computer before adding a reference on that second computer. When I sync Zotero on the second computer, a popup tells me something to the effect that there was a change to the database that needs to be added to my collection on the second computer. When I click OK, my collection contains only the reference from afar; all of the other members of the collection are no longer there, although they are still in the library and I can add them back to the collection. Is this the expected behavior?
  • dstillman
    Is this the expected behavior?
    Certainly not. It was a regression in the latest beta, fixed now in the latest dev build. The fix will be included in the next beta release.

    Thanks for reporting this.
  • mileallen
    When I encountered this behaviour, I realised that the Sync function fell short of the minimum that a user might assume and expect. I decided to uninstall Zotero completely from desktops to avoid the temptation and the trap and am now back to carrying the laptop everywhere because I seldom work without Zotero! (Thanks for the single most 'unsubstitutable' piece of software I use, of-course.)

    We know while using a beta we can only rely on backups, but it can mean quite a bit of lost work if you have have been digitising and reordering older references on one machine. When you find several large collections suddenly empty, There is no 'master' backup that will bring back everything. You are left with a choice of what you would rather lose (and repeat manually). This needs to be flagged more prominently, or the Sync feature put on hold until this is fixed.
  • adamsmith
    well - if you're concerned about this, there is a simple way to make sure your recovery work is simple:
    You attach a unique tag to each collection. Then, if a collection gets "wiped out" during sync (which obviously shouldn't happen) you can just filter your library by that tag and drag all those files back to the collection.
    Overall this is a minimal time commitment.
    Note that the items haven't been lost. They are just not in the collection anymore.
  • mileallen
    That's one workaround candidate, thanks. This has happened to me more than once.

    Of-course, a tag 'abc' each for every collection 'ABC' is the kind of duplication that an interface should aim at avoiding. The workaround would be near the bottom on my list of non-core activities necessary at the end of a routine work day!
  • adamsmith
    but since you can drag tags to multiple selected items we are really talking about 1min here - unless you have more than 20 collectsion - i.e. collection - ctrl-a - drag tag. next collection etc. Quite frankly, your removal action has probably cost you more time...

    I agree this is a workaround, but a perfectly quick one.
    And note that this happened for one update and will get fixed for the next one, so there wasn't really a lot of time to "warn" about this prominently.
    We here on the forum always emphasize that it's the sync feature that keeps the beta a beta a this time, so if you don't want to deal with beta behavior - don't, but calling for disabling sync or the like is bit overblown...
  • MG6
    This happened to me, too, but luckily I was able to recover from a backup when I got home. Im the meantime, I believe it helps to sync and exit the browser before moving to another machine (and of course, to backup after making significant changes on any of my machines). I can't promise, but it hasn't reoccured.
  • dstillman
    This is fixed in 2.0b6.4, available now.
  • Bryan Pfaffenberger
    edited September 2, 2009
    I'm curious to know what information is stored on the Zotero server as opposed to what is stored on the dav server. Does the Zotero server have just the categories, while the dav server has the data records and associated files? This would explain why a sync that goes wrong wipes out categories, but not the data records.
  • dstillman
    edited September 2, 2009
    Bryan: First, without closing Firefox, make a backup of your entire Zotero data directory, and note the modification time of the zotero.sqlite.bak file.

    Next, could you provide a bit more detail on what happened? The issue above was fixed, so if there's a bug here it's a separate issue.
  • Bryan Pfaffenberger
    Dan, I rang the alarm bell too early - it turns out that my classification was still there, albeit buried several levels down. Sync worked as advertised, it seems. When I discovered this, I edited my previous post but you beat me to it! Thanks for all your hard work! --Bryan
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