Cannot Open Files Across Devices

Hello,
I haven’t succeeded in finding a Topic/Discussion on the problem I’m facing. I have Scrivener installed on two MacBook Pros using latest version of MacOS. I also have it on an iPad. Recently, I set up DropBox to serve as a place to house files that I want to access and work on across all three devices. However, whenever I try to open my project on a device other than the one I used to create and save it, I’m shown the following message:

"The project at “/Users/jbeynon/Dropbox/Apps/Scrivener/The Schizoanalysis Project.scriv” seems to be of an older format, but no binder.scrivproj file could be found inside it. It may be missing or corrupt, possibly because of a problem with the device on which it is stored, or because of a synchronisation problem.

Try ctri-clicking on the project in the Finder and selecting “Show Package Contents”, then look for a file entitled 'binder.scrivproj". Ensure it has not been renamed by a backup routine. If it does not exist, try restoring from a backup."

I have no idea whether the binder.scrivproj file was renamed by a backup routine, and I have no idea how to restore from a backup.

I don’t really care whether I use DropBox or iCloud. I just want to be able to set up the software on these three devices so that I can access and work on the same files across them. If I need to restore the software instances to factory settings, I’ll do that. I did save what few documents I had saved in the project as Word files. Any advice for the most reliable method for working with and saving/accessing projects across devices on which Scrivener is installed?

Hi johncbeynon, and welcome to the forum.

The error you’re seeing is likely caused by the Dropbox desktop client on your Mac defaulting to “online-only” as the storage setting for your Scrivener projects.

Dropbox Support have this article explaining the settings to change so your data is "available offline" which could correct this issue.

You’ll want to make that settings change on both Macs, just to be clear.

If you’re using one of the Dropbox accounts that has their Selective Sync option, reviewing the second article I linked to might also be helpful.

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OK, thank you! I made the changes here to my work computer, and I will make the same settings changes to my home computer later tdoay.