Backup inconsistencies

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

A few days ago I did some structural work on my manuscript on my iMac, adding ‘PARTS’ and embedded empty chapter folders as well as many notes throughout . I closed scrivener. The next day, I opened the manuscript on my MacBook pro, and none of the changes appeared (the first time this has happened - I am a new Scrivener user, but I have been working almost daily with it).

I opened it on my iPhone Scrivener app, and encountered the same problem. Naturally, I was a little panicky (though I am double and triple backing everything up), but I had to wait to get home to check my iMac - and was surprised, when I did, to have the manuscript pull up with all my changes intact… I tried loading the manuscript into the other devices directly from Dropbox, but the material was still missing.

So I can only guess that my iMac is loading the manuscript from the local dropbox app, whereas my other devices are getting the older, unchanged copy from the dropbox server/site (or from their local dropbox app copies that match the dropbox server’s.) I am going to delete the dropbox version and replace it with the most recent version (that, as part of my backup process, I had emailed myself prior to discovering the problem) which will get me up and running again, but you can understand how disconcerting this is - had I made minor changes within the body of writing, I may never have noticed the anomaly.

I really need help getting to the bottom of this - my trust of Scrivener has been deeply shaken… I loooooooove all the functionality and the layout of the app, but if I can’t rely on it to faithfully back my work up, all that suddenly becomes irrelevant. It’s not useful to me if I have to check every change I make, large or small, across all devices and on the dropbox server, not to mention continuing to make double and triple backups (as I have always done with Word).

Please help!
John Ashmore

2

Scrivener on the Mac simply saves your project to the location you specify. What happens to it after that is up to Dropbox.

Which is not to say that you shouldn’t be concerned. Of course you should. But your symptoms are pretty much a textbook case of incomplete synchronization, so Dropbox is the place to look for solutions. A troubleshooting guide for synchronization issues can be found here: scrivener.tenderapp.com/help/kb … os-syncing

Katherine

3

…another development (that may shed some light(?)):

I just deleted the entire manuscript folder from my dropbox, online (leaving all the folders of my other manuscripts). Then I opened scrivener and opened the backed up version with the changes that I had saved to my hard drive manually. It opened without problem. I was trying, on shutdown of Scrivener, to get the new version uploaded to dropbox. I went to my dropbox account, fully expecting toes the manuscript - but it had not uploaded.

So, for some reason, it seems that Scrivener is no longer uploading to my dropbox account. Nothing has changed (settings or otherwise) and i am following the same steps I have been doing since transferring all my manuscripts to Scrivener a month ago…

Why would it suddenly stop uploading the MS when I close down the scrivener app? How do i get it to do that again? How do I assure it will continue doing that?

Thanks,

John Ashmore

4

Thanks - I will look at that link this afternoon. My problem is, I think, that it has stopped saving to dropbox without my having told it to or changed settings or parameters (or changing how I work). I have had sync problems where I am prompted to choose the correct version - in this case, there was only one version. Now, when I open it from a backup version, it no longer saves it to dropbox on closing the app…

5

Do you have the Dropbox app running on your iMac? Scrivener saves to a local folder on your iMac and doesn’t know about Dropbox. It is the Dropbox app that makes sure that any changes are uploaded/downloaded to/from the Dropbox server, and which also creates the Dropbox folder on your Mac.

6

“Saving to Dropbox” is actually a two-step process.

If you’ve installed the Dropbox software on your system, there should be a “Dropbox” location in Finder. (If you haven’t, that’s why you’re having problems.) That location is just like any other folder in Finder, except that the Dropbox software keeps its contents synchronized with the Dropbox server.

All that Scrivener does is the first step: saving the project to the Dropbox location on your hard drive. The second step, uploading to the Dropbox server, is entirely the responsibility of the Dropbox software.

If you are successfully saving from Scrivener to the Dropbox location in Finder, but the data is not then appearing on the Dropbox server, then you have a Dropbox issue and should contact their support team. Either the software isn’t running at all, or it isn’t synchronizing, or it’s unable to connect to the Dropbox server when it does synchronize.

Katherine

7

Yes i have the app on my laptop and desktop - the manuscript is no longer there after I deleted it from my dropbox account online. When i open it from a saved backup version, it no longer syncs with dropbox (online or local app) when I close Scrivener.

8

It is neither saving to the local dropbox app, nor my account online.

9

With Scrivener closed, locate the project in Finder, and drag it to the Dropbox folder. If you can’t find it, use the Save As command in Scrivener to save a new copy in the Dropbox folder. (I would recommend giving the new copy a different name to avoid confusion.)

Katherine

10

This is the expected behavior: you deleted the project from the Dropbox server, and it correctly synchronized that change to all connected devices. Then you opened a new copy of the project in a different location, but since it isn’t in the Dropbox folder, Dropbox has no way of knowing it exists.

Katherine

11

Thank you. I just did this and I am up and running. Though my confidence in Scrivener is still very low… It works across devices now, as it used to, but I have no assurance this problem will not arise again, randomly. For now, I am going to create a test file in the manuscript (and in my other 5 manuscripts) and write a number that I will change after every session and before closing scrivener. This way I can open it on other devices immediately after and check that the number matches to assure the session has been saved and synced without needing to check individual changes within the document.

I should not need to do this though… I will monitor it this way, and if it happens again (that my changes, large or small) are not synced and I receive no notification, I am going to have to change software.

Has anyone heard of this happening before?

And again, this is not the result of reopening the project before it has had time to sync after closing (which leads to a prompt to choose one of the two conflicting versions). This was simply a case of dropbox and scrivener not syncing at all when scrivener closed.

John Ashmore

12

I repeat, Scrivener does not synchronize your files. Dropbox does.

When you get a chance, please do read the troubleshooting link I sent. It’s also a good overview of things that can cause synchronization to fail.

Katherine

13

I will - thank you for the prompt replies and I will report back if I can locate the sync problem and can assure it doesn’t repeat.

John Ashmore

14

There is some misunderstanding here…

  1. Scrivener saves to your hard drive, nothing else.

  2. You have a Dropbox app installed. When this app is started the first time on a Mac it prompts you to log in to yourDropbox (DB) account and create a folder on your hard drive called Dropbox.

  3. When the app is running, in the background without you noticing, it uploads any changed files in your DB folder to the DB server. When it finds a newly changed file on the DB server it downloads it to your hard drive. When this works there is a green tick mark in Finder for every file that is synced this way.

  4. Sometimes an update of the Mac OS can result in the DB app not starting automatically, which means there will be no syncing of the content between that Mac and the DB server. You then have to start the app manually and make sure that it is running (you probably have the icon in the menu bar).

Mac Scrivener is NOT syncing anything anywhere, it only saves on your hard drive. The Dropbox app does all that, but YOU have to check that you get the green tick marks before putting your Mac to sleep.

Oh, almost forgot: There is no “account online”. You are only looking at the content on the Dropbox server directly via the web that way.

15

I’ve seen you refer to “Backup” with regard to Dropbox + Scrivener, so I think your terms, and maybe your actions, are not in line with what you need to be doing.

First, Scrivener backups are just copies of your project, made just in case you need to recover something from them in the future. Backups have absolutely nothing to do with syncing across multiple devices. The Mac settings for backups are found via the Scrivener->Preferences menu, in the Backup tab of the window that pops up. Again, those settings, and the backup functionality of Scrivener, have absolutely nothing to do with syncing via Dropbox.

So how do you sync a project using Dropbox? You move your project into the folder “Dropbox” that was created when you installed the Dropbox application (the one that puts that little icon in your menu bar) and configured it to use the dropbox.com account you created and are using on all your other devices. Presumably, your iOS device(s?) is set to look in a particular sub-folder of the Dropbox folder. That sub-folder is where you move your projects to in order to make them sync with iOS. Once you’ve moved your project into the Dropbox folder, you edit that copy, and all changes made on your Mac sync up to dropbox.com.

Synchronization is not in any way handled by Scrivener. The project, being IN the Dropbox folder on your Mac, is noticed by the Dropbox app in your menubar, and it just uploads it to dropbox.com. Any changes you make while editing the project are uploaded to dropbox.com, and any changes made on other computers/devices are downloaded to your Mac when you log on (and give it time to finish all those downloads).

As it has been since Dropbox came onto the scene, all you do to upload changes made on your Mac to dropbox.com… is edit the copy that’s in the Dropbox folder. Preferably, you quit Scrivener when you’re done, and let it tidy up the project, let Dropbox upload that last bit of book keeping, and then you can shut your Mac down and move to another device.

Note that the iOS version of Scrivener does do the syncing, unlike the desktop (Mac and Windows versions) Scriveners. Scrivener for iOS had to build in the syncing technology because iOS devices don’t store their files the same way a regular computer does. So that’s why you go into the iOS Scrivener app and sync there, whereas on the Mac, you barely have to do anything to sync your changes.

16

Thanks for the reply and I apologize for the confusion. By ‘backups’, I am not referring to the scrivener backups or backup folder (which I am aware is a very different thing), but rather manual backups I make myself in my own designated ‘backup’ folder, and also backups I send manually to my email account. I have lost material before, so I have a rather complex and foolproof backup protocol. I was hoping to simplify it by using scrivener, but this has scared me off a bit to be honest.

to simplify the description of the problem (I hope!):

  1. I made major changes to the project on my iMac desktop. I closed the desktop app and expected it to sync with my dropbox, as it has been doing reliably for the last month.

  2. the following day I opened the project on my IPhone scrivener app, but none of the changes were there.

  3. I checked my MacBook pro laptop’s local dropbox folder and the project was there. I opened the project in scrivener on this device, but the changes I had made the day before, were NOT there, and the project was the prior version and identical to the one that opened on my iPhone .

  4. I arrived home and checked my iMac, where I had originally made the changes: the project was in the local dropbox app, and when I opened the project in the scrivener app, the changes WERE there. (so, apparently, the local dropbox on my iMac had a different version (the correct one with the changes) than either the local dropbox folder on my laptop AND the one on my iPhone.

  5. I deleted the project from the local dropbox on my iMac, which then automatically removed it from the laptop and the phone.

  6. on my iMac, I uploaded a ‘backup’ version I had emailed myself and then saved it to the desktop; I then dragged the project to the local dropbox app, which made the new version with changes available on all the devices - so I am up and running again, with no lost writing.

So problem solved, right? Well… to me it’s as if the motor dropped out of my car. I stuffed it back in and closed the hood with my fingers crossed, and now the car works. But I still don’t know why it dropped out, or if - and when - it will drop out again.

It sounds like I might be the first person to have this particular problem, based on the responses (thanks everyone!), so I guess my only choice is to monitor all my changes closely and continue with my (relatively) complex ‘backup’ protocol. But if it happens again, and I catch it, I may have to look for new software…

Thanks,

John Ashmore

17

Thanks Katherine - I read the link, and also the quite lengthy document ‘Dropbox Syncing with IOS’ that was linked at the bottom of it. I also reread the IOS tutorial ‘syncing’ section, and by all accounts, I am doing everything by the book…

I wrote a more concise, step by step version of the problem in a response to another post, so I will cut and paste it here (I hope it’s clearer!):

to simplify the description of the problem (I hope!):

  1. I made major changes to the project on my iMac desktop. I closed the desktop app and expected it to sync with my dropbox, as it has been doing reliably for the last month.

  2. the following day I opened the project on my IPhone scrivener app, but none of the changes were there.

  3. I checked my MacBook pro laptop’s local dropbox folder and the project was there. I opened the project in scrivener on this device, but the changes I had made the day before, were NOT there, and the project was the prior version and identical to the one that opened on my iPhone .

  4. I arrived home and checked my iMac, where I had originally made the changes: the project was in the local dropbox app, and when I opened the project in the scrivener app, the changes WERE there. (so, apparently, the local dropbox on my iMac had a different version (the correct one with the changes) than either the local dropbox folder on my laptop AND the one on my iPhone.

  5. I deleted the project from the local dropbox on my iMac, which then automatically removed it from the laptop and the phone.

  6. on my iMac, I uploaded a ‘backup’ version I had emailed myself and then saved it to the desktop; I then dragged the project to the local dropbox app, which made the new version with changes available on all the devices - so I am up and running again, with no lost writing.

So problem solved, right? Well… to me it’s as if the motor dropped out of my car. I stuffed it back in and closed the hood with my fingers crossed, and now the car works. But I still don’t know why it dropped out, or if - and when - it will drop out again.

It sounds like I might be the first person to have this particular problem, based on the responses (thanks everyone!), so I guess my only choice is to monitor all my changes closely and continue with my (relatively) complex ‘backup’ protocol. But if it happens again, and I catch it, I may have to look for new software…

Thanks,

John Ashmore

18

thanks for the reply. I will address each of your points below:

  1. yes, I understand this.

  2. I did this when I first synced with the IOS version a month ago and this is the first time I have had a problem.

  3. I have always waited for the green tic before opening a project

  4. I have not done any OS updates since installing Scrivener; however I did an iOS update a week or so before the problem arose.

For clarity, I rewrote the problem I had, in steps, in response to another post. I have cut and pasted it:

to simplify the description of the problem (I hope!):

  1. I made major changes to the project on my iMac desktop. I closed the desktop app and expected it to sync with my dropbox, as it has been doing reliably for the last month.

  2. the following day I opened the project on my IPhone scrivener app, but none of the changes were there.

  3. I checked my MacBook pro laptop’s local dropbox folder and the project was there. I opened the project in scrivener on this device, but the changes I had made the day before, were NOT there, and the project was the prior version and identical to the one that opened on my iPhone .

  4. I arrived home and checked my iMac, where I had originally made the changes: the project was in the local dropbox app, and when I opened the project in the scrivener app, the changes WERE there. (so, apparently, the local dropbox on my iMac had a different version (the correct one with the changes) than either the local dropbox folder on my laptop AND the one on my iPhone.

  5. I deleted the project from the local dropbox on my iMac, which then automatically removed it from the laptop and the phone.

  6. on my iMac, I uploaded a ‘backup’ version I had emailed myself and then saved it to the desktop; I then dragged the project to the local dropbox app, which made the new version with changes available on all the devices - so I am up and running again, with no lost writing.

So problem solved, right? Well… to me it’s as if the motor dropped out of my car. I stuffed it back in and closed the hood with my fingers crossed, and now the car works. But I still don’t know why it dropped out, or if - and when - it will drop out again.

It sounds like I might be the first person to have this particular problem, based on the responses (thanks everyone!), so I guess my only choice is to monitor all my changes closely and continue with my (relatively) complex ‘backup’ protocol. But if it happens again, and I catch it, I may have to look for new software…

Thanks,

John Ashmore

19

Hi John,

As background, I’ve been syncing Scrivener projects between 3x devices without issue for a few years. For the last year, I’ve been workinig on a 100k+ novel, so we are talking millions of words synced without any hiccup.

Thanks for providing a detailed list of steps, that helps clarify things.

The bolded part is where the flaw in your process is. If you don’t want syncing issues, you must always confirm that DropBox is done syncing on one device before you try to work with another device.

So, for example:

  1. On the iMac: Write. When done, close Scrivener. Confirm that DropBox is done syncing.
  2. On the MacBook: Confirm that DropBox is done syncing. Launch Scrivener. Write. When done, close Scrivener. Confirm that DropBox is done syncing.
  3. On the iMac: Confirm that DropBox is done syncing. Launch Scrivener. Write. When done, close Scrivener. Confirm that DropBox is done syncing.
  4. Go to #2 (rinse & repeat).

Same thing applies to your iPhone, except that on iOS you launch Scrivener, then sync, write, sync, then close Scrivener.

If you are habitual and faithful in the above, you shouldn’t see any other conflicts. It took much longer to type than it does to actually do in practice. :smiley:

But if you neglect to monitor and confirm that DropBox is done, you will continue to experience syncing issues.

You’ve been lucky, that’s all. :smiley:

What you have experienced is not unusual. After hanging out here for a few years, my experience is that syncing challenges are the number one cause of major issues that people report on these forums, precisely because folks don’t fully grasp how syncing works.

But now that you understand and will follow the process, you won’t have any more problems. :slight_smile:

As others have already explained, this has nothing to do with Scrivener. If you created Word docs in the DropBox folder on your MacBook, and for some reason DropBox didn’t sync them correctly, you wouldn’t blame Word, would you?

I’m glad to hear that you solved your immediate problem. If you follow the process outlined above, you should be fine going forward.

HTH,
Jim

20

[quote]
John Ashmore wrote:

  1. I made major changes to the project on my iMac desktop. I closed the desktop app and expected it to sync with my dropbox…

The bolded part is where the flaw in your process is. If you don’t want syncing issues, you must always confirm that DropBox is done syncing on one device before you try to work with another device.

So, for example:

  1. On the iMac: Write. When done, close Scrivener. Confirm that DropBox is done syncing.
  2. On the MacBook: Confirm that DropBox is done syncing. Launch Scrivener. Write. When done, close Scrivener. Confirm that DropBox is done syncing.
  3. On the iMac: Confirm that DropBox is done syncing. Launch Scrivener. Write. When done, close Scrivener. Confirm that DropBox is done syncing.
  4. Go to #2 (rinse & repeat)./quote]

Jim,

Thanks again for the reply. I should have added in step 1 that the project had indeed synced… I thought this was implicit from the opening of Step 2 (‘the following day’).

So, as you see, I have been following the steps you outlined to the letter (and have read multiple documents and followed the tutorials and have confirmed that I am doing everything by the book.),

I had once or twice made the error of not waiting (in the first week of use of Scrivener about a month ago) and Scrivener is quite good at catching and warning about it (conflicts and conflict folders). This is not the same problem at all, unfortunately.

I can’t stress enough that I have followed every sync step very thoroughly and have integrated it into my workflow.

I just hope my problem is an anomaly for me, and for others.

Cheers,

John Ashmore