Items dissapearing in zotero

malszycki
edited July 13, 2025
Hi. I noticed recently that papers in my zotero are disapearing. I though I'm going insane, but now I'm certain, because I shared the paper with someone 3 days ago and now it's not there in my library.
I checked online zotero and my trash bin is full of papers, which I certainly didn't put there, but the one I lost still not to be found. Ideas?

Edit: I have zotero on Linux (debian 13), and android and I sync them through zotero storage
  • malszycki
    edited July 14, 2025
    I have zoplicate plugin, which I disabled now: maybe that was the reason (although it would be totaly not welcomed behaviour).
    I just realized that I don't have in my library item, which I cited in my thesis already.
    I will get back if few days with update
  • adamsmith
    Zoplicate certainly shouldn't cause this.

    In what word processor are you authoring -- Zotero devs should be able to tell you more based on an item that you cited recently that has since gotten deleted.
  • warguelles
    edited July 14, 2025
    Are the items that are missing just the PDFs or do they also include the records in your Zotero library?

    I ask because a few weeks ago I happened to identify that I was missing 2 PDF files, just the PDFs, not the records in Zotero. After much struggling, I realized that even if I restore the files from my Backup, they immediately disappeared again.... It turned out that it was the antivirus used at my institution, which suddenly identified that they supposedly contained a virus, and move them to the quarantine folder... In short, a false positive!
  • malszycki
    edited July 14, 2025
    Hi, thanks for comments.
    I'm using google docs for writing. My main browser is firefox.
    It's entire items missing, both pdf and the record.

    The item that I cited and subsequently lost since then I re-created. It was a simple review article. I'll now export my database every day to see if there's something disappearing again.
  • adamsmith
    Make a copy of the google doc, then (in the copy) click "Switch Word Processor" and "Continue" and then provide the field code for a disappeared item here. It'll looks something like:
    ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"Pi5I0OkF","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(“#OAweek: Dissertationen Mit Offenen Forschungsdaten | UB Blog,” n.d.)","plainCitation":"(“#OAweek: Dissertationen Mit Offenen Forschungsdaten | UB Blog,” n.d.)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":10751,"uris":["http://zotero.org/groups/487712/items/NQVRHZLC"],"itemData":{"id":10751,"type":"post-weblog","title":"#OAweek: Dissertationen mit offenen Forschungsdaten | UB Blog","title-short":"#OAweek","URL":"https://blogs.hu-berlin.de/wir_bewegen_buecher/2017/10/26/edissplus/","accessed":{"date-parts":[["2017",10,26]]}}}]}


    (the key part it the content of "uris" so http://zotero.org/groups/487712/items/NQVRHZLC in this example )
  • malszycki
    edited July 14, 2025
    Hi again,

    Now I noticed that a whole bunch of papers lost their pdfs locally, but they are still available in the web library. Syncing doesn't download the files from the internet. I'm using 70% of the available storage space

    What should I do to force sync with online library? Maybe my issues come from some desync problem?

    Edit: I just re-installed local zotero and re-downloaded everything from web library.
  • malszycki
    After nearly a month of writing I didn't notice anything disapearing anymore. It appears that the solution was to re-install zotero locally. Thanks for all the replies!
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