items deleted keep coming back

bethjo
I think Zotero is a great product and I'd like to keep using it but I've had too much frustration in the last several weeks over sync problems. After spending weeks staring at endlessly spinning sync arrows, and, on the rare occasion when syncing worked, going through lots of conflict resolutions, only to have duplicates and items I want to delete put back into my collection, I decided to suspend autosyncing, create a clean copy of my library on one computer, and upload that version to the server. I spent hours deleting all the pdfs and duplicates from my library, then selected the reset option "restore to zotero server" but the server came back to me with over 600 conflicts. I selected the local version of each one, and then the server downloaded my library back to me - with all the pdfs I had tried to delete back in! Either I did something wrong, or your sync is not working right.
  • dstillman
    You likely weren't using the restore option correctly. You have to actually click Reset in the preferences after selecting the option you want.

    We've clarified this in the latest dev builds.
  • bethjo
    I think that is what I did. I checked the third radio button, then "reset" then "ok".
  • dstillman
    If you use Restore to Zotero Server, all items in your personal library on the server will be erased, so there's not really any way for those to return unless you sync them from an existing database on another computer.

    Unless you're referring to group items? Those aren't affected by the reset options.
  • bethjo
    Shoot, yes it was a group library I was working on. I did back up my group library in several different export formats when I had it how I wanted it. Is there a way to get that clean version onto the server now?
  • dstillman
    edited February 3, 2011
    There's no way currently to import into a group library.

    Deleted items still shouldn't come back. Don't use the reset options. Just delete what you want, with auto-sync enabled, and the changes should propagate to the server. You can check it at any point on the website.

    And if you want to make sure your work is preserved at any point, make a proper backup of your Zotero database. Then, in a pinch, you could always delete group library items from another computer, check the website to make sure they were gone, and then perform a Restore to Zotero Server—that doesn't clear groups, but it does force the Zotero client to upload everything it has.

    (If the sync that undid your changes occurred within the last 12 hours, you could even disable auto-sync, revert to your last automatic backup, verify that has what you want, clear the group items from another computer and make sure they're gone on the websites, and perform a Restore to Zotero Server on the computer with the latest data. You shouldn't really need to do any of this, though.)
  • bethjo
    It has definitely been adding back in things I have tried to delete. Checking to see if they are deleted on the server is another problem because I can't open any of my subcollections on the website for some reason. I guess I thought if I did something like remove a pdf from an entry and then sync, the result would be the entry on the server would not have the pdf. Instead, I seem to just be throwing a lot of conflicts, and even when I choose the local version, the old version with the pdf attachment gets returned to me.
  • dstillman
    You need to be fully synced, and then delete the items after that, and then sync again. If you're getting conflicts, you need to resolve those before doing anything else or you're likely to have trouble.
  • bethjo
    I do resolve the conflicts that come up each time. I did finally sync last Saturday (it has been taking about a week to get through) and then deleted the items, with others in my group also with their autosync buttons deselected, and then I tried the sync.
  • bethjo
    Thank you! Whatever you did, its working now!!
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