1rfoley412
I'm Lorena, this account is for my late father's library.
I added a collection "card file," and a few hours later discovered there were two categories by that name. I renamed both so I could see which one had more books (70-something), moved the one book in the other one to the first one (the one with70+ books), and deleted the now-empty (or so I thought) collection. When I refreshed the page is was still there. I tried deleting it again and it said there were still books in it. I went back and looked and there were 280+ books in it.
So I used the power editor to make sure all of the books in the smaller "card file" collection (I forget what names I had given the two to keep them straight) were in the larger collection , and removed the smaller collection from those books. After checking that the former-smaller collection was empty I deleted it.
And when I refreshed the page there were THREE card file categories (which I've renamed adding numbers after each). But that's not the bad part.
A separate collection that I hadn't touched was gone. That collection was one I used to keep track of which books I'd given away or sold.
I'm not sure what happened here. My best guess is that on one of the collection page refreshes the names got mixed up and the "gone" category was deleted when I was trying to delete a "card file" collection. Or, one (or both) of these collections actually is the old "gone" collection, but that's going to be hard to check.
There's another missing collection for one of the bookcases, and it's possible that another of the now-numbered "card file" collections is actually the collection for that shelf.
I don't know if there are backups on your end, but all of this mess happened today. It had been a few days since I last edited the library.
So this is both a bug report (because collections shouldn't be reappearing and renaming like that), and a question on if there's any way to revert the library to an earlier state or if I'm going to have to re-catalog several hundred books.
Meanwhile, I'm afraid to touch anything for fear of making it worse.
Thanks.
I added a collection "card file," and a few hours later discovered there were two categories by that name. I renamed both so I could see which one had more books (70-something), moved the one book in the other one to the first one (the one with70+ books), and deleted the now-empty (or so I thought) collection. When I refreshed the page is was still there. I tried deleting it again and it said there were still books in it. I went back and looked and there were 280+ books in it.
So I used the power editor to make sure all of the books in the smaller "card file" collection (I forget what names I had given the two to keep them straight) were in the larger collection , and removed the smaller collection from those books. After checking that the former-smaller collection was empty I deleted it.
And when I refreshed the page there were THREE card file categories (which I've renamed adding numbers after each). But that's not the bad part.
A separate collection that I hadn't touched was gone. That collection was one I used to keep track of which books I'd given away or sold.
I'm not sure what happened here. My best guess is that on one of the collection page refreshes the names got mixed up and the "gone" category was deleted when I was trying to delete a "card file" collection. Or, one (or both) of these collections actually is the old "gone" collection, but that's going to be hard to check.
There's another missing collection for one of the bookcases, and it's possible that another of the now-numbered "card file" collections is actually the collection for that shelf.
I don't know if there are backups on your end, but all of this mess happened today. It had been a few days since I last edited the library.
So this is both a bug report (because collections shouldn't be reappearing and renaming like that), and a question on if there's any way to revert the library to an earlier state or if I'm going to have to re-catalog several hundred books.
Meanwhile, I'm afraid to touch anything for fear of making it worse.
Thanks.
2rfoley412
Addendum: I'm now seeing that at least three collections that existed before I created the first "card file" collection are missing.
This may not mean much on your end, but I suspect that the current "card file 1" has the books that were in the now-missing "shelf-FR-W-1" collection. But one of the missing collections, which had "Eaton" in the name (it was "Eaton found" but I may have dropped the "found" part) had about 285 books in it, so neither "card file 2" nor "card file 3" would be that collection. It's possible that "card file 3" is what used to be "Gone (sold, donated, etc.)" or something similar, I don't recall exactly what was in the parenthesis.
I know that collections have a long-standing problem with phantom duplicates. At this point I think there needs to be a warning in big bold letters to make a backup export before making any changes to collections, at least until it's fixed.
This may not mean much on your end, but I suspect that the current "card file 1" has the books that were in the now-missing "shelf-FR-W-1" collection. But one of the missing collections, which had "Eaton" in the name (it was "Eaton found" but I may have dropped the "found" part) had about 285 books in it, so neither "card file 2" nor "card file 3" would be that collection. It's possible that "card file 3" is what used to be "Gone (sold, donated, etc.)" or something similar, I don't recall exactly what was in the parenthesis.
I know that collections have a long-standing problem with phantom duplicates. At this point I think there needs to be a warning in big bold letters to make a backup export before making any changes to collections, at least until it's fixed.
3gilroy
Some things that would help to know:
1) What is your system you're working on? Windows/Mac/iPhone/Android?
2) Where are you trying to make these changes to collections? In the Your Books Collection editor (known to be currently buggy) or in the Settings/Collections page?
2a) In understand that you've moved books using power edit. Did you turn off power edit between uses?
1) What is your system you're working on? Windows/Mac/iPhone/Android?
2) Where are you trying to make these changes to collections? In the Your Books Collection editor (known to be currently buggy) or in the Settings/Collections page?
2a) In understand that you've moved books using power edit. Did you turn off power edit between uses?
4rfoley412
1) Windows 11
2) https://www.librarything.com/settings/collections
3) IIRC I set Your Books to the smaller card file collection using the drop-down collection selector, selected all, added them to the larger collection, either selected them all again or checked to make sure they were all still selected (I don't recall if they'd un-selected or not), then removed them from the smaller collection. If you're supposed to turn the power editor off and on again between uses there should be a warning to that effect.
2) https://www.librarything.com/settings/collections
3) IIRC I set Your Books to the smaller card file collection using the drop-down collection selector, selected all, added them to the larger collection, either selected them all again or checked to make sure they were all still selected (I don't recall if they'd un-selected or not), then removed them from the smaller collection. If you're supposed to turn the power editor off and on again between uses there should be a warning to that effect.
5rfoley412
Since work on updating the library is stalled because I don't want to make any changes until I know if there's a way to roll back what got broken, am I just out of luck here?
I can probably reconstruct two of the missing collections ("shelf-FR-W-1" by going over that shelf again and seeing if it's the same as "card file 1", and "Eaton" because I'd done an export of just that collection a few weeks back), but the other missing collection is going to be difficult.
I can probably reconstruct two of the missing collections ("shelf-FR-W-1" by going over that shelf again and seeing if it's the same as "card file 1", and "Eaton" because I'd done an export of just that collection a few weeks back), but the other missing collection is going to be difficult.
6rfoley412
OK, I can't wait on this any longer, I'll just have to do my best to reconstruct the collections. So if someone does get to this at some point, it won't look like what I initially described any more.
7knerd.knitter
>1 rfoley412: Apologies for not getting back to you sooner. It appears that Card file 3 - maybe was Gone was in fact the Gone (sold, gifted, lost) collection. I have not had a chance to dig into this any more, but I can verify that.
8rfoley412
Thanks. I think I've gotten almost everything back the way it should have been, and I've been trying to remember to refresh pages between any changes to collections (either when bulk editing books or when making changes to collections). Now I just have to start the Card File collection over again ::shrugs::.
Normally I wouldn't worry overmuch about timing, but I'm trying to get Dad's library cataloged before the house is sold and I have to get rid of everything.
Normally I wouldn't worry overmuch about timing, but I'm trying to get Dad's library cataloged before the house is sold and I have to get rid of everything.
