I’ve seen a number of posts for using Cubby as a sync client for the desktop versions of Scrivener, but most specific examples only mention syncing backups to “a cubby”.
Does anyone use Cubby for Scrivener projects that they’re actively editing? I’m starting to get tired of relocating so much of my stuff to Dropbox, and would rather keep much of my data in different folders outside of Dropbox. So I’m considering Cubby for everything that I currently sync, except for those projects that I’ll use with iScriv, which will initially only support Dropbox and may never support Cubby… I’m okay with this compromise.
Does anyone have anything to say against Cubby for actively edited Scrivener projects?
I’m not familiar with Cubby, but all of the caveats that apply to Dropbox apply to any similar service.
The most common cause of problems with synchronization services (other than user error) is failure to synchronize all of the subfolders within the Scrivener project. If the service doesn’t synchronize subfolders by default, make sure you’ve set the option to tell it to do so. (If no such option exists, don’t use the service.)
The second most common cause of problems seems to be failure to upload/download changes in a timely manner. This can cause all kinds of problems because Scrivener saves so frequently: versions might be uploaded out of order, causing the service to scramble them, incorrectly delete ‘duplicates,’ and so on. This appears to be the fundamental issue with Google Drive, for example. The only real protection against something like this is a secure backup: one saved in a location that the synchronization service can’t touch.
I take it some of my posts have been among those you’ve read. I’ve been using Cubby for my active files for some years now … ever since the Great Firewall of China decided that Dropbox was a threat to national security and blocked it—it was a post from his Nomsense that put me on to it.
I have three Cubbies that I share with Shirley, with another friend, and with both of them—they are both in China and are Scrivener users—as well as another Cubby where my own projects are, and one for non-Scrivener stuff. In all that time, Shirley and I had a conflicted file at the beginning of our Scrivener collaboration, and I had one when first testing the iOS beta, both for the same simple reason … not allowing Cubby to synchronise fully. Otherwise no problems; it’s been stable, reliable and just as fast as Dropbox in terms of data transfer—unlike iCloud Drive, which often behaves like a snail on Temazepam—all-in-all no complaints.
When it comes to my shared projects and the ability to use iOS-Scriv, they are stuck for the moment—as Dropbox is inaccessible and VPNs are unreliable in China as the GFWoC detects one it promptly blocks it—but I am getting round the problem by keeping the actual project in the appropriate Cubby and putting a symlink in ~/Dropbox/Apps/Scrivener/. That seems to be working fine for the moment, but I’m going to check it more thoroughly in the next few days.
The only thing I have heard contrary to this is that Cubby is LogMeIn, which makes it a no-no for some people it seems.
I’ll send you an invite—gives both an extra GB of free space—when I can find out how … it’s not coming up in Safari, so I’ll have to move to another machine to see if the code comes up there!
I take it some of my posts have been among those you’ve read. I’ve been using Cubby for my active files for some years now … ever since the Great Firewall of China decided that Dropbox was a threat to national security and blocked it—it was a post from his Nomsense that put me on to it.
I have three Cubbies that I share with Shirley, with another friend, and with both of them—they are both in China and are Scrivener users—as well as another Cubby where my own projects are, and one for non-Scrivener stuff. In all that time, Shirley and I had a conflicted file at the beginning of our Scrivener collaboration, and I had one when first testing the iOS beta, both for the same simple reason … not allowing Cubby to synchronise fully. Otherwise no problems; it’s been stable, reliable and just as fast as Dropbox in terms of data transfer—unlike iCloud Drive, which often behaves like a snail on Temazepam—all-in-all no complaints.
When it comes to my shared projects and the ability to use iOS-Scriv, they are both unable to use it—as Dropbox is inaccessible and VPNs are unreliable in China as, whenever the GFWoC detects one, it promptly blocks it—but I am getting round the problem by keeping the actual project in the appropriate Cubby and putting a symlink in ~/Dropbox/Apps/Scrivener/. That allows me to access the projects on my iPad, but leaves them accessible to the others. It seems to be working fine for the moment, but I’m going to check it more thoroughly in the next few days.
The only thing I have heard contrary to this is that Cubby is LogMeIn, which makes it a no-no for some people it seems.
I’ll send you an invite—gives both of us an extra GB of free space—when I can find out how … it’s not coming up in Safari, so I’ll have to move to another machine to see if the code comes up there!
Thanks Mark, but I’ve got a free account already, I’m afraid. Sorry I can’t help with your storage limit.
I actually just bumped up against the 5G limit on the free account because I’m using it for all my Scrivener backups . Most of my live projects are on Dropbox at the moment, but I’m considering reversing that relationship and trying it out as my primary sync agent for Scrivener. If that works out, I’ll probably pay for the 100G storage tier so that I can sync more of my standard documents.
Thank you for chiming in; with your experience to reassure me, I’m going to swap places with my backups and most of my live projects and give it a test run.
I used to put my backups on Dropbox, but not wanting to shell out for more space on that, since they’re zipped, I’ve moved them onto iCloud Drive … I have 50GB there for £0.79/month, so, so far it seems to be working. The sluggishness of uploading to iCloud Drive is less important with zipped backups.
Anyway, good luck with Cubby. I too prefer to be able to put my Cubbies wherever I like on the HD … for a time, I even had one on an external HD, but I then needed that hardware for something else, so …
I use Cubby in China, as recommended by Mark. So far I’ve had a couple of minor weird sync issues (simple ghost files) but nothing major, and it otherwise works flawlessly (collaborating amongst 3 others, with lots of potential for sync conflicts; one nice feature is Cubby tells you which files are open on other users machines). I still prefer Dropbox, not quite sure why, but nevertheless so far Cubby has worked well.
