Upgrade StorageZotero 1.0 library lost by upgrading to Zotero 2.0
I'd been using Zotero 1.0 under Windows XP and Firefox 3.5.x. This all started when Firefox automatically updated me on or around 18 Feb 10. After the update Firefox said "hey, v.3.6 is available". So I manually downloaded and installed Firefox 3.6. This worked well, but told me that Zotero was no longer compatible with this version. So I went to the Zotero site, found Zotero 2.0 and downloaded that. On installing it, a warning dialog came up saying that it would be a good idea to back up my Zotero data before proceeding. I think it also sent me to a Zotero info page. Anyway I learned somehow where the data were, and to exit Firefox before backing up. I chose the cancel button on the Zotero installation warning box, which seemed to stop the installation completely. I closed Firefox and copied the zotero folder (located in a randomname folder in my Firefox profile folder) to a thumb drive. This took about half an hour. When I started up Firefox again, it acted like it didn't know me. It wanted to import settings from elsewhere. I canceled, but all my bookmarks were gone, and I had a homepage that wasn't blank. (Also there was no Zotero.) It took me a couple days to learn about Firefox profiles, and to figure out that Firefox had started a new profile (so I had no history or bookmarks and was no longer starting on a blank page). My old profile data were still there, so today (22 Feb 10) I got the ProfileManager to make a new profile using the old data. My bookmarks came back, but my history is still gone. However, Zotero had now shown up. Version 2.0. But no library. It's empty. Looking in the current (non-backup) zotero folder I see a storage folder that seems to have the same stuff as before, a zotero.sqlite with 676kb last modified today (22 Feb 10), and a zotero.sqlite.bak file with 0kb last modified today. I have just tried to back up the files from my thumb drive, but zotero.sqlite and zotero.sqlite.bak are not there. Unfortunately, when I backed up those files days ago I did not know enough to look for particular files. All I know is that I backed up my entire zotero folder. I think it is a safe presumption that the zotero.sqlite and zotero.sqlite.bak files were not in the zotero folder when I backed it up. I suspect they were lost at some point in the Zotero 2.0 installation, probably when I was warned to backup the files, and was kicked out of the installation process by choosing to cancel (or whatever the choice was, I do not remember exactly what the button in the dialog box said). I am not expecting to get my library back, it seems clear that it is gone for good, but if anyone knows how I would be grateful. I do however think there is a bug in the installation process. The installation took an ignorant user (me) and got him to choose a sequence of events that ended up destroying data -- despite trying to choose a sequence of events that was suggested to more likely to preserve data. The installation should be more foolproof than this.
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Second - have you searched your hard-disk for zotero.sqlite? Zotero doesn't delete it's old data folder on upgrade, so there is a pretty good chance it's still there - make sure to enable searching hidden files and folders (not sure exactly how that works in windows - you'll have to figure that out). There is a relatively good chance that you'll find the old Zotero folder - including the sqlite - somewhere on your harddisk. You can then use the instructions on recover from backup in the documentation.
Third - something apparently went awfully wrong during your FF upgrade. You should never have to deal with profiles unless you very specifically decide to - in fact, FF profiles are lableled as for advanced users only. I can't tell you from what you write what exactly happened, but what you experienced with Zotero is almost certainly due to that problem and considering that you're the first person to report something like that here it seems highly unlikely that it'd be related to Zotero.
My old library data files still exist! They reside at the terminus of a path almost identical to the one I had been looking at with great frustration. In the middle of the path however, instead of being in a Mozilla folder, they were somehow diverted into a Sun folder at the same level. After that the path resumes all the same as the other one: Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/randomname.default/zotero. And inside the zotero folder in the Sun path are two files, zotero.sqlite and zotero.sqlite.bak, both last modified 18 Feb 10 and both size 4,295KB.
I haven't actually tried to restore the zotero data yet. I'll let you know if and when that is successful. I see no reason it shouldn't be.
I do have a hypothesis now as to what happened. It is not FF 3.6 alone, though it probably started there. After I installed FF 3.6 it worked, and my original profile from the previous version was being used. It was only during or after downloading and installing Zotero 2.0 that my FF profile was shunted aside, and the Zotero library "went missing". I think what happened is that FF 3.6 shunted my Zotero 1.0 files into the Sun path sometime during its updating process because Zotero 1.0 was no longer compatible with the new FF. Zotero 2.0, as it was being installed and trying to find its parts, caused me to interrupt the update process by warning me that I should have my Zotero data backed up before proceeding. Somehow because I stopped the Zotero updating process in order to backup (perhaps my fault by doing it incorrectly), Zotero may have lost track of where the old zotero.sqlite and zotero.sqlite.bak files were (in the Sun path). I think the best face to put on this event for Zotero, and also to me the most plausible, is that Zotero 2.0 was going to update its library from the old Zotero 1.0 library, that Zotero 2.0 knew where these had been shunted (into the Sun path), and that Zotero 2.0 was about to do exactly this when it was interrupted. Somehow the information that the library update had not been finished and where those library files were was lost because of the interruption. But the actual library data were not lost, just their whereabouts. I am greatly relieved.
However, to those who are writing the code trying to anticipate user screwups, I am ignorant but I am not stupid, and what happened to me seems likely to happen to some percentage of other users.
Anyway, thanks again for your help.
Unfortunately, replicating this type of problem is a lot harder than regular usage issues. It's also necessary to fix the issue (if it can't be replicated it can't be fixed).