Mac OS Sonoma (14.6.1), 3GHz, 10 core Intel Xeon W, 256 GB RAM
If re-downloading the file fixed it, then the problem recurred, then the most likely explanation is that iCloud again “optimized” the file back up to their server.
As noted above, iCloud has functions that will “optimize” material off of your local drive even absent an explicit “sync” command on your part.
From Scrivener’s point of view, it is saving files to the local disk exactly as you have told it to do. It has no ability to control what other applications do to those files behind its back.
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Just to make sure I’m understanding, iCloud can “optimize” files that once resided on its cloud storage and now exist in a non-synced, not-connected local drive? That would be a little more control over my files than i would accept from Apple (I know, “welcome to the walled garden, lol”).
If that’s the case, and I copy the file up to DropBox and it syncs to a different local drive…assuming iCloud can’t touch the file there? (If I’m sounding paranoid, it’s only half-serious as I try to make sense of this.) Remember, we’re talking about a local folder iCloud can’t even see.
And what would make the Scrivener templates vanish? That does suggest some kind of file tampering or some Scrivener misbehavior at least.
I do hope to get this resolved as I’ve now got the entire book neatly formatted in Atticus as a failsafe (and exported and copied as a docx to Google Drive, iCloud and OneDrive.
I like Scrivener’s editing tools better, but until I get this resolved, am having trust issues.
The specific settings to be wary of are “Optimize Mac Storage” and “Documents and Desktop.”
Consult Apple’s documentation for full details. The first moves “unused” files from your local iCloud Drive to cloud storage. The second stores your entire Documents folder in iCloud Drive.
Based on the symptoms you describe, I would advise investigating “local folder that iCloud can’t see” more closely.
If you are running both Dropbox and iCloud on the same system, be extremely careful about overlaps between the two. If iCloud has moved a file off your disk, it won’t be there when Dropbox tries to sync it (or vice versa).
As for templates vanishing, are these Scrivener’s built-in templates, or templates you created? Templates you created are stored in Scrivener’s Application Support folder, while the ones that ship with Scrivener are stored in the application package in your Applications folder.
The other thing I would check is to make sure that you’re really opening the version of the project that you think you are. If you have multiple versions around – whether created as part of troubleshooting for a problem like this or for any other reason – and inadvertently open an older version, it’s easy to believe that data has vanished, when it simply was never in this particular version.
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Templates are not saved in the same place as project files, so that is almost certainly not an iCloud issue as iCloud usually doesn’t touch AppData (as far as I’m aware). That would only happen if you deleted those files yourself from Scrivener’s Application Support Library, you ran a file cleanup tool, or something really wonky is happening with your computer overall (bad OS update, malware, etc.).
You can, of course, re-install Scrivener to get the default templates back.
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I again really appreciate all the suggestions and, fingers crossed…
The Mac optimization settings changed, verifying iCloud settings were right, the files appear to be working correctly in that local-only folder.
Before I looked at a Scrivener file, I checked my Affinity files…
Explanation: Because none of us here are superstitious or tech-phobic, I looked at different files on my system that were synched via iCloud and my Affinity application (Designer, Photo, Publisher) files showed symptoms similar to the ones my Scrivener files demonstrated. Empty canvas, or parts missing…
I downloaded the files manually and opened them from the local, downloaded folder, and at first they didn’t load correctly either. After taking the suggestions above to review the iCloud settings (which were correct), and the Mac Optimize settings (which were not), I then opened the files this morning with no issue.
Oh, and the templates reappeared, too.
Again, not to be superstitious, though if this is indeed Apple settings, we may want to be very explicit in the Scrivener installation. Not because L&L did anything wrong obviously, but because the Mac environment has a few “gotchas” that can trip us up if we don’t know about them. I’ve worked in tech for 25 years and consider myself quite tech-savvy, but this threw me off. For someone writing a book or screenplay and wants their tools to “just work,” this could be an obstacle, and that user might confuse this for being a Scrivener issue. Which I feel confident admitting at this point it is not.
Thanks again for everyone’s suggestions. This is one of the more active and supportive software forums I’ve found.
