dvanoni
Sync PDF parent item instead of silently failing
Describe the issue Whenever I click "sync to notion," on Zotero, nothing happens. It doesn't show the arrows indicating a sync and nothing will appear in notion. This started randomly occurring a couple of weeks ago. I have updated the connection in Zotero. I have tried turning off Notero on Zotero and turning it back on. Did the same thing on notion.
To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Go to Zotero
- Right Click on PDF
- Click "Sync to Notion"
Expected behavior Nothing populates in Notion and there is no signal of syncing. No error message is displayed.
Hi @phd22, thanks for reporting this. Would you mind trying to sync another item and then sending a screenshot of the Zotero logs? You can open the logs from the menu: Tools > Developer > Error Console
Thanks for sharing that, @phd22. The No valid items to sync message there means the item you're trying to sync is not a supported type. Would you mind sending a screenshot of the item you're trying to sync?
Yes sure, here's a snapshot of the items I've tried syncing. Almost everything is a PDF or full text, but these are all items I have been able to sync in the past without any errors.
Ah okay, that's the issue! You need to sync the parent item rather than the PDF item.
I think this is something that can be improved in Notero. We should be able to grab the parent item automatically and sync that as desired.
Let me know if this works for you!
I can now see the "syncing to notion" notification, but it still isn't populating in Notion - here's the screenshot
Interesting. 🤔 Do you see a new "Notion" link item under the parent item? (You may need to close and reopen the parent item.)
If you do see that Notion item, what happens if you double-click it?
Nope, no "Notion" link under the item. This is what I see when I double click.
Would you mind sharing another screenshot of the logs after you perform a sync? I'm curious if we can see any error that's not appearing in the popup for some reason.
Hmm well I don't see any errors there, so I do believe it should be syncing. Would you mind trying a couple things?
- Restart Zotero and see if the "Notion" link item appears for the item you synced. If it does, double-click it and see if that opens Notion to the desired page.
- Restart/refresh Notion and then try to search your database for the item you synced.
Ah ha! The good old "turn it off and back on" fix! I'm glad it's working!
I'm going to leave this issue open as a reminder to improve the sync process so that it automatically uses the intended parent item instead of silently failing.