Background:
An Endnote x7.4 database was successfully set up and sync’ed on two Windows 10 PCs via Endnote Web. When importing PDF files into Endnote, some automatically populated the record’s fields (apparently the ones with DOI references), and others didn’t. Initial syncing worked perfectly.
The issue:
The problem is that whilst most subsequent imported files automatically synced correctly to the second PC from Endnote Web, some synced at the initial stage (ie without the fields populated and before manual correction) and won’t update to the corrected record. This is after syncing the first PC - after making the record changes - and then syncing the 2nd PC. Both PCs show Sync Status as “All changes have been sent”. Both PCs had Endnote open (and autosyncing) during this entire process.
The workaround:
I’ve temporarily worked around the issue by copying the Endnote files from the first PC to the second (Learning.Data and Learning.enl). That seems to have worked. However this is a recurring problem and repeatedly doing this workaround is a pain and seems poor practice. I’m a new user, so maybe I’m missing something obvious. I need to put a large number of records into Endnote so I’d like a solid solution.
Can someone point me in the right direction please?
“…some synced at the initial stage (ie without the fields populated and before manual correction) and won’t update to the corrected record…”
So these records were actually “complete” and corrected in the Endnote library on PC1 but underwent an incomplete sync to your Endnote online account and subsequently to PC2? Do any of these records have something in common (e.g., sequence order, same journal, etc.) Were you trying to sync a large number of records with PDFs? If so, does the problem still occur if you reduce the number of records by syncing in batches?
If you’re importing the PDFs into the Endnote library (on PC1) which is synced to your Endnote online account, you also might try: 1) importing the PDFs into a separate Endnote library, 2) update the records as needed, 3) copy the “complete” records from the separate Endnote library into the Endnote library (on PC1) synced to your Endnote online account, 4) sync the library (on PC1) to your Endnote online account, then 5) sync the Endnote library (on PC2).
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Thanks CrazyGecko
Your suggested process of importing to a (non-synced) library, editing the records and then importing in bulk the completed and checked records into the master database was useful. Thank you for this hint, but my original problem remains.
Your suggestion did nothing to solve the problem with the failure of the Endnote sync to work properly. So currently I have needed to abandon the sync process altogether, having not been able to make it work and having lost confidence in it. Instead I have repeatedly manually copied the library and database folder onto a second PC whenever changes are made. This means all endnote changes could only be made on one PC, meaning Endnote in my experience is not a multi-user, or really even a syncable multi-PC system for a single user.
Your answer suggests you perhaps didn’t understand the problem. I’ll try to be clearer:
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I used File-import-Folder to import pdf files into an Endnote database. [The File-Import-File option did not work.]
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When endnote imported the pdf files, some of these imported and correctly populated all endnote fields fully and correctly. These seemed to be files with DOI references in the imported PDF files. For these files, this was a major and unexpected bonus and benefit of the Endnote import process. I was impressed!
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Those without DOI references in the imported PDF files all failed to automatically populate the data into the correct fields. I didn’t see this as any failure or fault with Endnote. Perhaps data in the pdf files aren’t in a format which Endnote can recognise. So, as expected, I needed to subsequently manually populate data into the correct fields for these records.
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When the files initially imported, the sync process (correctly) copied all records to cyberspace in the state they were in at that moment, and then synced to my second PC. Again I don’t see any problem with Endnote here.
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When I subsequently manually populated the fields of the imported files (i.e. those without DOI references) in the first PC, I expected the sync process to simply update the cyberspace record, and then sync correctly to the second PC. However this updated sync did NOT occur. And I couldn’t find any way of forcing this sync to occur. So despite both PCs reporting that all syncing was up-to-date, the two PCs remained significantly out of sync.
Perhaps if autosync was switched off, the initial sync wouldn’t have occurred until I chose, and then maybe I wouldn’t have had a problem in this process. But this does not explain why the update did not sync, and does not give me any confidence in the sync process when records are updated.
I would highly recommend that sync issues be raised by a call (not thru the web form) to tech support, as they often require a number of steps to resolve that can vary from situation to situation.