Some annotations don't sync

matthieuheitz
I have been annotating a PDF on my laptop in Zotero Preview
Later, I went on my desktop and opened the file in Zotero Preview.
Only some of the annotations were synced.
I tried to add more annotations (on either side, laptop or desktop) to force synchronization, but only the additional annotations that I made get synced.
The ones on my laptop that were missing on my desktop are still missing.
Do you know what could be happening?
On my iPad, I can see the annotations that are missing on my desktop, I have the same annotations as on my laptop.

Thank you very much for all your work with Zotero and for helping the community. I've really enjoyed Zotero 6 so far :)

Desktop: Zotero 6.0.13
Laptop: Zotero 6.0.13
iPad: 1.0.3 build 5
  • dstillman
    Later, I went on my desktop and opened the file in Zotero Preview.
    Do you mean the Zotero PDF reader, or do you mean macOS Preview?

    Assuming you mean the Zotero PDF reader, see Changes Not Syncing.
  • matthieuheitz
    Sorry, I meant Zotero PDF Reader in all cases.

    So, I checked all the possible reasons, and since I'm able to sync new annotations in this file between my desktop and my laptop:
    - I'm really looking at the same file
    - sync has completed
    - there is no sync error.
    - the library is set to sync
    - I'm using the same account.

    So I read the troubleshooting paragraph and I performed the following 3 tests:

    - The debug is run on my desktop. I annotated the pdf on my laptop, then waited for it sync the annotation. It syncs the one I just added, but not the other ones (in the same file) I've been trying to sync.
    Submitted with Debug ID D262848632

    - The debug is run on my desktop. I deleted one of the annotations on my laptop, that won't sync on my desktop.
    It synced on my desktop, and nothing new appeared.
    Submitted with Debug ID D1039676698

    - The debug is run on my desktop. This time, on my laptop, I added a comment to one of the annotations that doesn't sync to my desktop. Then, it synced on my desktop, and that annotation with a comment appeared, but still none of the other ones that are missing appeared.
    Submitted with Debug ID D775138071

    I hope there can be a clue of what's going on, inside one of these 3 debug logs.
  • dstillman
    Annotations are synced individually, so the relevant change here for logging purposes would be a change to one of the annotations that hasn't synced, followed by the next sync.
  • matthieuheitz
    Okay, then I believe that's what I did in the 3rd test, no? Debug ID D775138071
  • dstillman
    But it sounds like that synced successfully. Unless you can reproduce creating or modifying an annotation and having it not sync, it's unfortunately not something we can debug.

    If modifying an annotation causes it to sync, you can make some temporary change to them — e.g., adding a temporary tag to an item and dragging all annotations in the sidebar to it — to force a resync.

    In a future version, we'll likely add the ability to force a full sync to fix situations like this more easily, but that's not possible at the moment.
  • matthieuheitz
    Okay, adding a temporary change to them does work, I just haven't done it because I have too many annotations that are not synced.

    Yes, I think a full resync would be very useful in that case.
    Thank you for your help! :)
  • dstillman
    Do the annotations that haven't synced to one of the devices all appear in the online library?

    If so, can you provide the URL from the address bar when viewing the parent item in the web library, and also share a list of some of the annotations appearing online that haven't synced? (You can email to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread if you prefer. We'll respond here.)
  • matthieuheitz
    Oh I didn't know you could open a PDF in the online library.
    So if I'm not mistaken, I go on the online library, I select the item, then I click on the Attachment tab on the right, then click on the pdf, then click on 'Open' below. It does open a new window, however I only see the loading circle and the page never loads. I tried on Firefox and Chrome, and neither works.
    I also tried with various other pdfs.
    If I click on 'Download' instead of 'Open', I get the error: 'Received error from Zotero server: Not found.' So this might explain why it can't load it.
    My attachments are hosted on a webdav server.
  • dstillman
    edited October 16, 2022
    You can't view PDFs in the web library if you're using WebDAV, since the web library doesn't have access to the files. But we'd still want the same information about the parent item and annotations that aren't syncing.
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