Does “Merge Items” operation change in Zotero v.6.0?

In Zotero v.5.X the merge-items-operation worked with keeping all pdf-attachment saved in the resulting item always. It seems, now in Zotero v.6.0.X this function differs. I merge several items, that each of them has a pdf-attachment. But the resulting merged item includes not all of the pdf-attachments.
I submitted debug output (D1848094395) of the merging two items with pdf-attachment, but only one attachment was left.
Is it a new conception of the merge-items-operation, or disfunction?
I think, the former method was better. The items need several pdf-attachments very often.
  • The merge has changed and should remove duplicate PDFs. If the PDFs were distinct, that'd be a bug, though. Could you give an example?
  • Master attachment 65275 matches 65287 - merging
    The attachments here were detected as being the same.
  • That is an interesting new conception. At the same time, the realization needs to be proofed in practice. It depends on the criteria and algorithm that determines the similarity of 2 files. The devil is in the details.
    For example, Find-Duplicate-Items operation is very useful, saves a lot of time, especially when I import some external collection to my library. But in some cases, the "duplicate diagnostics" is not perfect. The operation accepts items of different types as duplicate sometimes, when it should not to (ex., book-item with the title of the book and book-section item with the chapter in the same book (written by the editors of the book) that was named like the book). (It had a place in Zotero v.5.X). Don’t know about v.6.
    It is not critical while operations are diagnostic. But it is a more sensitive case, when the function results in deleting some materials (attachments). I think, it would be more secure to have a dialog window for making an informed choice, or maybe another interactive form of notification (for example, with the checkbox “Trust AI / Let me choice: to determine similar attachments when merging” on the configuration panel).
  • edited April 9, 2022
    It's really not complicated. This was a common request and arguably a bug in the prior implementation. We only delete attachments when they're an exact file match or an extremely close content match. It's a basic algorithm, not "AI". It has nothing to do with the item metadata. If you merge two items that aren't the same, the two attachments won't be merged.

    If you have an example where two files that shouldn't be merged were merged, provide an example. Otherwise, there's nothing to discuss here.
  • Thank you. I will follow your advice.
  • edited April 9, 2022
    And yet a little question left. Once I had two similar items for merging. The former one I created a year ago, and it had a reference link (for the attachment file in the external folder). The new one had the attachment file in my library (Zotero folder). After the merging a reference link was deleted, an attachment in the library was left. I always make “rename and move” operation for any attachment (for keeping files in the external folder). In upper case after this operation, there were two files in the folder: {bookname.pdf} - former attachment (deleted reference) and {bookname2.pdf} - new attachment.
    Is it possible to choose the file to be deleted, not the reference to the attachment (if they are similar)? In order to escape redundant activities and file copies.
  • @PaulApril Based on your experience, are the file deleted by the merging process recoverable? I mean, are the files moved to the Trash (mac) and Recycle Bin (win)? Thanks.
  • @PaulApril:
    After the merging a reference link was deleted, an attachment in the library was left.
    It shouldn't merge attachments if one is stored and one is linked. We'll change that for the next version. Thanks for reporting.

    @astroHao: If you have questions about how Zotero works, you can just ask us — you don't need to ask someone's "experience". Deleted attachments after merging are moved to the Zotero trash.
  • @dstillman okay. Got it. Will not ask others' experience anymore.
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