References suddenly wiped - URGENT

Help
1

Hi everyone,
I was using JabRef 5.13 to store my citations on Mac. I had over 10,000 sources. Closed it (previously this was never an issue), and when I came back and opened it again, it said to update. I agreed, then my cursor went on a circling carousel, and immediately after that my entire Jabref got wiped. I literally have an empty window now, and the file where the repository is stored is also gone.

Guys what’s going on, please help.

1 Like
2

Hello Michaela, this sounds like something went terribly wrong.

The first thing to do: Storing your backups

Before you do anything with JabRef going forward, please check the backups that are automatically created and copy all of them to another folder of your choice (There is a limit to how many backups are stored and old ones will be overwriten with newer ones, if you continue to use JabRef). See Automatic Backup (.sav and .bak) and Autosave | JabRef.

Where can I find the backup files?

  • The backup files ( .bak ) can be found in the user data dir.

  • Unix/Linux: /home/<username>/.local/share/org.jabref/jabref

  • Windows: Windows 7/10: C:\Users\<Account>\AppData\org.jabref\jabrefAlternatively, open the run dialogue by pressing Windows+R, then enter %APPDATA%\..\Local\org.jabref\jabref Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<Account>\Application Data\Local Settings\org.jabref\jabref>

  • Mac OS X: /Users/username/Library/Application Support/org.jabref/jabref

Then later: Debugging

It would be great, if you could create a github issue, as those are easier to track, but we will definitely look into this matter, even if you don’t.

I have a few questions though:

  • Have you been trying to update to 5.14 or 5.15? What version are you on now?
  • What happens, if you restart JabRef?
  • Is it possible to open other library files?
  • What do you mean with “JabRef got wiped”? Is it not possible to start JabRef anymore?
  • What do you mean with “the file where the repository is stored”? Do you mean the library (.bib) file? Or do you mean the files to run JabRef? As far as I am aware, a repository is not stored within a file (only the link to a repository may be stored in there), but it is the other way round. A file is stored in a repository (often remotely). See Software repository - Wikipedia.
3

Hey Thilote,
Thanks for your reply.

  1. I only got a message to update to 5.15, when I agreed, it opened the webpage and completely wiped everything that I had on JabRef. Even the file you mentioned was wiped - it’s as if it never existed on my computer.
  2. Same deal. No fix.

I’m now having to re-do everything I’ve done for 3 months in 1 day.

4

There is nothing in the user data dir?

5

Can you see the “logs” directory? Are there any? If yes, could you please upload them here?

6

@CaptDrShowMe
So sorry for your issue! Let’s try our best to help you:

Open Finder → in the menu press Go To → Enter ~/Library
→ Go to application support → jabref → backup
There should be a list of *.bak files
These are backups of your bib file. You can open them with TextEdit to check their entries

Copy them over to your home folder and rename .bak to .bib

7

@CaptDrShowMe We can also do remote support. You find my email address on GitHub. Just mail me. We can then also include @Siedlerchr who is a MacOS user.

8

Can you also check if your BibTeX library is in “Recent libraries”? You can check by selecting “File” from the upper menu bar and then “Recent libraries”.