Collection Disappeared!

zeynep
An entire collection structure (with five subcollection in it) has disappeared! I can't see it in trash. I had Firefox open in two locations and I was able to get a screen shot of the way it was yesterday from the web interface but the whole collection and the subcollections I had painstakingly organized are gone. Is there any way to recover this structure? Thanks!
  • dstillman
    edited July 19, 2010
    Not really clear on what you're saying. Where do you see, and where don't you see it?
  • dstillman
    And if you don't see it on the web interface, e-mail support@zot....org with the name of the collection, what library it was in, and a link to this thread.
  • zeynep
    I had a collection with subcollections -- it's gone. I don't know how; obviously, most likely explanation is that I accidentally deleted it but I just don't see how I'd do something like that. Email on its way, thanks much. It had taken me a lot of work to identify relevant papers and sort them into these subcollections!
  • dstillman
    We'll look into it. In the meantime, you should immediately make a backup of your latest two automatic backups in your Zotero data directory, named zotero.sqlite.bak and zotero.sqlite.1.bak.
  • zeynep
    I did indeed do just that.

    I wonder if this has anything to do with running two Firefoxes that sync to the same library? I just closed one of them so that I'm working from a single copy.
  • dstillman
    No, that's how it's supposed to work.

    But I show an uploaded deletion of those collections (as well as a saved search) at 12:50 p.m. EDT today. Unless you've made lots of other changes in the last couple hours, the easiest thing is probably for you to simply revert to the last automatic backup and then perform a Full Sync from the Sync->Reset pane of the Zotero prefs. I've removed the deletion entry from the server logs, so the collection shouldn't be deleted on a resync.
  • dstillman
    And you can ignore the part of those instructions about Zotero RDF if you've already synced any items added since the backup time.
  • zeynep
    Attempting to recover -- what's the extension for sqlite? I had already closed Firefox so I must convert a BAK file into a SQLITE file on a Windows system.
  • zeynep
    Sorry, never mind. It is, of course, sqlite.
  • zeynep
    Ok, I seem to be in the process of recovering the collection. In one of the computers, the backup was also post-deletion but there was a nice backup from just before the deletion.

    I must have accidentally deleted the folder while deleting a saved search.

    I really appreciate the prompt help!

    I know it must have been discussed but an undo button would probably be a nice addition:-) It's too easy to delete a whole structure. I probably accidentally selected the folder along with the saved search and clicked "sure" when it asked me if I wanted to delete all my work from last week or two:-)!
  • dstillman
    edited July 19, 2010
    It's possible we could show deleted collection structures under the Trash and allow those to be restored the same way items can be restored.
  • zeynep
    Wow, that would be great!

    Organizing collections can be very painstaking work -- mine wasn't that complicated a structure but I had culled through hundreds of references to identify a few relevant ones and placed them in their proper "sub-category." Yes, I still had the items in "My Library" but the real work and information was in the organization of the items. And I'm sure everyone accidentally deletes something, sometime. And, yes, the backup is great *if* one notices things in time and before Firefox is closed and reopened too many times.
Sign In or Register to comment.