I am using Scrivener on two Macs, both running macOS Sierra. I keep my .scriv files in Dropbox. Dropbox is syncing all my non-Scrivener files (about 2000 of them) fine between the two Macs. But the .scriv files don’t sync well. With the two Macs sitting side by side on the same wifi network, and signed into the same Dropbox account, it sometimes takes several hours for the .scriv files to sync.
Anyone else seeing this issue? Anyone have solution? Thx
You need to explain in more detail what you mean.
First, the .scriv file is not a file but a package, which is a folder looking like it’s a file, to avoid users to touch the files inside the folder.
Secondly, when you say sync, do you mean copying to or from the Dropbox server or both, and does it work the same on both machines? Have you tested opening the web interface to see what is happening at the Dropbox server?
Sometimes individual files are causing problems, but restarting the Mac sometimes solve it.
PS. Having the Mac’s on the same WiFi doesn’t change anything. They both still have to communicate with the Dropbox server.
Yes, I am aware that .scriv refers to a package. When I do Show Package Contents on Mac 1 (my primary Mac) and look in .scriv > Files > Docs, I can see docs with modification dates of two hours ago. When I go to the Dropbox website and navigate to the same docs, I can see the same modification dates. So that part looks ok.
But when do the same on my Mac 2 (the one I use less frequently), the same docs have modification dates that are several hours older. So it appears that Mac 2 is not syncing .scriv packages.
Anyway, I took your advice and turned both Mac’s off and back on. That solved it, with Dropbox now syncing again. I guess I’ll just do that each time I experience the issue. Thanks!
You might try doing the synchronization asynchronously. That is, allow all the files from machine A to upload before trying to download to machine B. The idea being that trying to upload and download at the same time could be causing problems for Dropbox’s conflict detection code.
Also, if you have physical access to both machines at the same time, you don’t need to use Dropbox at all. Just use a direct connection or a flash drive. That should give you a faster, more reliable transfer. (Of course, you may want the project in Dropbox for other reasons, but it’s not necessary if you’re simply copying files between two Macs.)
Katherine
I’ve had similar problems with files on the iCloud Drive, i.e. not updating (syncing started and stalled all the time, and simply restarting usually fixes it.
I have been running Scrivener on two Mac:s for quite some time and on two iPad:s since the iOS version was released, and never had any syncing problems. Except for once on the Mac:s when I forgot to let things sync before closing the lid on one and then opening the same project on the other Machine.