Collection missing from UI but still present in API without deleted flag

[李利超]

Hi,

I’m encountering a possible inconsistency between the Zotero desktop client and the Web API regarding the deletion state of a collection.

Summary of the issue

I deleted a collection named “子分类” from the Zotero desktop client.
After deletion:

• The collection no longer appears in the collection tree

• It is not visible in Trash

• I’m confident that I did not permanently delete it

However, when I call the Web API:

GET https://api.zotero.org/users/18818913/collections

The collection is still returned in the results, and it does not include "deleted": true, which suggests it is not considered deleted according to the API.

Example API response

{ "key": "FLQZ4BLV", "version": 385, "library": { "type": "user", "id": 18818913, "name": "llc2peak", "links": { "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/llc2peak", "type": "text/html" } } }, "links": { "self": { "href": "https://api.zotero.org/users/18818913/collections/FLQZ4BLV", "type": "application/json" }, "alternate": { "href": "https://www.zotero.org/llc2peak/collections/FLQZ4BLV", "type": "text/html" }, "up": { "href": "https://api.zotero.org/users/18818913/collections/BIZD2ZC5", "type": "application/json" } }, "meta": { "numCollections": 0, "numItems": 0 }, "data": { "key": "FLQZ4BLV", "version": 385, "name": "子分类", "parentCollection": "BIZD2ZC5", "relations": {} } }

[Dan Stillman]

You deleted the parent collection, not that collection. The parent collection shows in your trash.

Currently, if a parent collection is in the trash, it won't show descendant collections. I can't remember if that was intentional, but it sort of makes sense: a descendant collection of a collection in the trash couldn't be restored, at least without pulling it out of any parent collections and making it a top-level collection, which would be confusing. But perhaps we should show the full collection hierarchy under the top-most deleted collection, even if we only allow restoring the top-most collection.

- Dan