My love affair with Scrivener 3 went sour in record time. Because this morning, Scrivener has disowned its own file.
There is apparently either something wrong with the file ending, or it is missing altogether. Because I am Swedish, I am refused the option of purchasing English language software, it’s all in Swedish by default. Meaning that I do not know the correct terms in English.
I’ll try to explain, as best I can. Scrivener wants me to download file endings .scriv or possibly .scrivx which I tried, of course, but it’s not working. I absolutely no idea why. It may have something to do with allowed access, but I don’t know where to even start with that.
And why in world do I have to download file-endings? It doesn’t sound right.
I work on macOS 10.13.6
I do not use Dropbox or iCloud, nor do I intend to do so.
I save my files to my desktop and then on to an external hard drive.
I need help to fix this, please.
*Edit: I have found a function to change system language in Scrivener, (awesome feature!) which should simplify discussions.
After mucking about a bit, (idk exactly what I did) I now get a msg saying that a file is missing. ‘binder.scrivproj’ And it does not seem to be there in the original project folder.
I’ve tried creating test projects, and I could not open those either, but now I seem able to. It’s the first original (and important) one that can’t be opened.
… but I don’t think Scrivener itself can corrupt the file type.
If you repeat the steps, how did you create the project and how did you save it, and did you use any other commands?
I created a blank file and pasted in text from a Pages document. I saved by clicking file >save.
The file was a .scrivx, but I changed it after having noticed that the test files that were accessible had that ending. Changing it back, I get the same error messages as I did originally. (Included screen shots) But either way, I can’t open it.
When I now create a document, still choosing blank file, it becomes a .scriv and is no problem to open.
You are confusing things by using the wrong names for things, making it hard to understand.
Your project is called projectname.scriv and this is a package which means it is a folder but looking like a file. Inside the project package there are folders and files, and one of the files is the projectname.scrivx file.
You should never manually change the file type unless you know exactly what you are doing.
Clicking Save does save the project but Scrivener saves the project automatically anyhow so you don’t have to click Save for this.
And you are absolutely sure that you didn’t active Documents & Desktop on iCloud the first time you started the Mac, after getting it, when you activated various things and answered yes and no to different questions? You can check this in System Settings, under iCloud -> iCloud Drive -> Options
If iCloud and iCloud Drive is not activated at all there is nothing to check but it might be worth checking.
… because it has happened before in here. People have sometimes activated Documents&Desktop in iCloud when first initiating their Mac but forgot it, which didn’t cause any problems until Scrivener suddenly couldn’t find some of the files it needed because they were no longer present on the HD but only in the cloud. So the project got corrupted.
The project never looks like a folder in Finder on a Mac, only in Explorer on a PC.
To be clear, what program did you use to create that blank file in? Because it sounds to me like you’re creating a plain text file in some program other than Scrivener, and then changing the extension of that filename to either .scriv or .scrivx
The way you import text into a project is to first have created a Scrivener project in the proper way (File->New Project or use the window that shows various project templates, choose one, and create the project from there). Once you have created that new Scrivener project, in the binder, click on the green + sign in the toolbar to create a new file. In the editor pane of Scrivener, paste in your text. Now you have that text in one document within your scrivener project.
Forgive me, but I am mystified by this. A Scrivener project should automatically be saved with a .scriv extension. I don’t understand how you managed to get a project with a .scrivx extension, if that is what you mean. The only way that you could normally see a file with the .scrivx extension would be by looking inside the project package – for that you would need to right click on the package and select “Show Package Contents” (in the English version of the OS), or you would (perhaps) need to be using some kind of utility instead of Finder.
lunk is trying to help, and needs to try and eliminate possibilities, so some of the questions are going to seem very basic. And as has been stated above, those of us who have been visiting the forums for a while know that there are loads of misconceptions and incorrect assumptions that people make, and these can create all sorts of problems.
A Scrivener project is a folder, with subfolders and potentially hundreds of component files. It should always have a .scriv extension. Under normal circumstances, the .scriv package is all that you will see in Finder.
The .scrivx file is the master index to this folder. Under normal circumstances, it will be invisible. You should never see the inner structure in your first set of screenshots, and if you do see it you shouldn’t change anything.
If you go one step back up the hierarchy, to the folder that contains the “Test Marigold” folder in your screenshot? What do you see? Please right-click on the Test Marigold folder, choose the Get Info option, and send a screenshot of what you see.
