Issue when merging snapshots

qqbb · December 10, 2022

Steps to reproduce

- Use the Zotero connector and save the same website twice including snapshots
- Sort the items list by Date Added (optional)
- Select the earlier snapshot attachment and delete it (Shift-Del).
- Select the two parent items, right-click, select "Merge Items...".
- The merged item doesn't have a snapshot attachment
- It would be expected that the later snapshot isn't removed

sqrtx · 2026-02-09T08:33:33+00:00

I've had that happen for the first time now. I often do snapshots to save a version of a website and annotate it for reference. If the snapshot still has the cookie notice or similar, I do it again, trash the old one (otherwise Zotero decides with one to keep) and merge the entries. This usually leaves me with one nice snapshot. Today for the first time I had no snapshot left after merging.

mjthoraval · 2026-02-09T09:16:22+00:00

I can reproduce the bug with the latest beta.

The problem can be avoided if deleting permanently the earlier snapshot from the Trash, or by selecting the later saved item in the merging selection option (modify it to see the choices).

Zotero 8.0.2-beta.4+2f7055e15 (64-bit)
Windows 11

enozkan · 2026-02-09T15:23:50+00:00

I have observed this going back to at least Zotero 6. And it is not about snapshots only; it happens with some other attachments, too. For example, for items saved from Pubmed, if you delete the Pubmed link from only one of the items but not the other (and not empty the Trash), the identical Pubmed link is absent in the merged item.

In the case of links as attachments, one should just not delete any before merging, since the merged item also merges the links into one. But the behavior is confusing and can lead to loss of attachments.