Lost attachments after changing laptops

grp-459

188BET靠谱吗Hi Zotero community, I'm hoping that you can help provide some clarity for a researcher I'm supporting.

188BET靠谱吗This researcher's laptop was broken, but was extremely relieved that Zotero sync worked perfectly and that the library was available in a browser and synced nicely over to the desktop client on a new laptop - with one exception.

About half to three quarters of the PDF attachments that were in the original library on the broken laptop are now appearing with a greyed out/faint PDF icon - when trying to access the PDF, there's a 'file not found' type message.It seems that many of the PDF attachments didn't sync to the server, though some did.

Upon investigation, I realised that the researcher had, presumably at some point on the old laptop, maxed out their storage allowance of 300mb.This would seem to answer the question of the missing attachments: the storage was full, and the attachments stopped syncing on the old laptop once this was the case.Is this correct?

My only other question is whether there's any action at all that we can take to try and recover the lost attachments.The researcher is happy to pay to upgrade their storage.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

dstillman

Upon investigation, I realised that the researcher had, presumably at some point on the old laptop, maxed out their storage allowance of 300mb.This would seem to answer the question of the missing attachments: the storage was full, and the attachments stopped syncing on the old laptop once this was the case.Is this correct?

Yes.

188BET靠谱吗Zotero shows a warning next to the sync icon in the toolbar when you're at your storage quota, where it shows all sync errors, and you can click on it for more info.But if you ignore it, additional files just wouldn't be uploaded.

My only other question is whether there's any action at all that we can take to try and recover the lost attachments.

If the files were never uploaded, they were never uploaded, so we wouldn't have any way to recover them.The only option would be to restore from some previous backup of the 188BET靠谱吗Zotero data directory.

We're going to make the warnings for various sync errors more prominent in an upcoming version to try to make sure people understand when their library isn't fully syncing.

tim820

If the hard drive is intact on the 'broken' laptop that would be another way to retrieve the PDFs.Extract the HDD from the laptop, connect to a USB-based disk controller, plug into new laptop to copy PDFs.

grp-459

Thanks so much, both, for these prompt replies.There is indeed a suggestion that the HD from the old machine can perhaps be salvaged, so we're not out of options just yet.

Yes, I think the more prominent the warning the better!

Thanks again for your responses - what a great community.

keeleya

May I ask a follow up question:

I have had the same issue.Old laptop on which PDF files for each reference were stored was destroyed.I had maxed out storage quota and so my online references don't have PDFs.

In such cases, on my new laptop I have greyed out PDF icons and get the warning when trying to open them:

"The attached file could not be found at the following path:



188BET靠谱吗It may have been moved or deleted outside of Zotero, or, if the file was added on another computer, it may not yet have been synced to zotero.org."



188BET靠谱吗I now have purchased storage from Zotero.

Is there a way to "find available PDF" with the files on the laptop where these PDF icons are greyed out because there is no file in the ?

Many thanks,

dstillman

@keeleya: You'd need to delete the existing attachment items with missing files, and then you can use Find Available PDF.Note that that will work best if you're on a network where you have direct access to gated files (or a VPN to such a network).It can't use a web-based proxy in your browser.More details about this feature in Improved PDF retrieval with Unpaywall integration.