Cannot export files

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

I can no longer export files from Scrivener. It was working fine a few weeks ago; since then, I have made updates to Mac OS.

When I choose File–>Export–>Files and choose “Export selected files only,” no file exports. The program does not crash, but the following error appears in Console:

2

Hi,

That error is saying that Mac OS X is not allowing Scrivener to write to your desktop - you can see this from the first line:

Scrivener(224) deny file-write-create /Users/beth/Desktop/7 - Chpt.txt

This means that Scrivener is doing everything right - as far as I can see - but that OS X is refusing to let it write anything to disk. Are you on the Mac App Store version or the version downloaded from our website?

What happens if you open TextEdit and try to save a text file from that to your desktop, does that work okay?

Thanks and all the best,
Keith

3

I am using the Mac App Store version.

I can successfully save a file from TextEdit to my desktop.

4

An update–this may be user error on my part.

I was testing something another user suggested, and found that I can export a file so long as the document does not contain notecards. If the document has notecards associated with it, I cannot export, but I can compile.

In the past, the documents I have exported did not have any notecards associated with the document; I did not realize that my recent use of notecards could change this behavior.

5

Hi,

Notecards shouldn’t have anything to do with it. However, testing this, I have just found a bug whereby, if you set it so that meta-data and notes should be exported too and you’re only exporting a single document, the notes and meta-data files won’t get exported, as Apple’s sandboxing system denies them access to the folder. A couple of things:

  1. Are you trying to export a single file or multiple files? If a single file, does it work when you go to export multiple files?

  2. Select “Authorize Directory Access…” from the “Scrivener” menu. Click on “Add Directories…”, and add the directory to which you are trying to export to the list of authorised directories (or just add your entire home folder). Does it work then? This should give Scrivener the permissions it needs under sandboxing (the security system that Apple insists all App Store apps use).

All the best,
Keith

6

Keith,

The first suggestion did not make a difference; if I tried to export multiple files where any one of those files had notecards, it did not export (and in fact, caused some sort of hang that required a forced shutdown of the program). Exporting multiple files, none of which had notecards, worked fine. My export settings were already limited to the file only; I didn’t have the notes and meta-data options selected.

However, your second suggestion looks to have fixed the problem. I added the desktop directory and my documents directory, and now, I can export both single files containing notecards as well as multiple files, where at least one of the files contains notecards, to those locations, with no hangs and no errors.

Thank you!

7

Hi,

I’m glad that helped! It’s very strange, though. Using “Authorize Directory Access…” basically grants access to write to locations that sandboxing would normally deny it. This is because, under sandboxing, apps can only save to locations that the user has explicitly selected using a Save dialogue box or by dragging files via the Finder. So, the Authorize… directory allows you to manually add folders and Scrivener can then hold on to those permissions. However, when using File > Export…, you also go through a save dialogue box, and that should give Scrivener permission to export the files to the location selected there even if global access hasn’t been turned on (and it works fine on my machine). So I don’t understand why on your copy of OS X, Scrivener is being denied access in this way.

Thanks and all the best,
Keith