Annotations randomly disappearing

frvc · 2025-12-21T08:47:02+00:00

I’m experiencing random loss of PDF highlights/annotations in Zotero 8 and I’m trying to understand whether this is a known issue or a sync/workflow pitfall.

Setup:

- Zotero 8 on two MacBooks
- ZotMoov moving the PDFs when attached
- PDFs are linked attachments, stored on Google Drive
- Google Drive sync + Zotero sync enabled on both machines
- Annotations are made inside Zotero’s built-in PDF reader

Issue:

I can open the same PDF file (same path on Google Drive) on both machines, but some highlights/annotations randomly disappear over time.

No duplicates involved, no manual replacement of the PDF, and no external PDF editor used.

Is this a known issue and how to make this workflow work reliably? Is there any way to recover the lost annotations?

dstillman · 2025-12-21T16:11:29+00:00

We can't help with this unless you can reproduce it with all third-party plugins disabled.

frvc · 2025-12-21T16:29:28+00:00

Thanks for the clarification.

To confirm, the only third-party plugin I have installed is ZotMoov to move the attached PDFs to the Google Drive directory automatically. No other plugins are installed.

tim820 · 2025-12-22T06:10:32+00:00

Zotmoov is unlikely to be involved as this is an annotation (data) issue not a file issue.

You presumably have Zotero *data* syncing turned on, otherwise annotations added in the Zotero reader would not appear on other computers at all.

So this issue would seem to be most likely related to data syncing. Possibly that data syncing has not fully completed on a computer where you added some annotations.
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/changes_not_syncing

Zotero usually detects inconsistent file or data between local and remote (online), and shows a dialog window asking you to choose which one you want to keep. In my experience those *notified* inconsistencies can sometimes arise when working on a single (synced) computer only. As if Zotero cannot resolve which is the real/latest change by itself.

dstillman · 2025-12-22T13:34:54+00:00

Zotmoov creates new attachment items in order to create linked files, which requires recreating annotations and could easily result in a bug like this.

(@tim820, it's not helpful to speculate about data syncing or conflict resolution — you have no reason to think that's relevant. We will provide support if the OP can reproduce this without plugins enabled.)

frvc · 2025-12-22T18:25:55+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

One complication is that the issue appears intermittent / non-reproducible on demand, often only noticed later when reopening a previously annotated PDF. I haven’t been able to trigger it reliably with a minimal step sequence so far.

That said, I’ll disable ZotMoov and see if it happens again.