Empty chapters on importing scrivx project file

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
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I just installed Scrivener 3.1.5.1 for Windows. I had a .scrivx backup file of a project that I’d saved to the cloud. When I imported the scrivx file, the chapter structure and everything was intact, but all of the chapters were empty.

What can I do to recover the contents of my novel?

2

Hi

In your unzipped project folder, you need to have a “Files” folder with a “Data” folder in it.
I suspect you had earlier zipped the .scivx file instead of the whole project folder. (Or perhaps you double-clicked the zipped file, and dragged the .scrivx file from there, without actually unzipping the whole.) If that is the case, there is nothing to do until you recover and/or properly unzip those.

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Once you’ll have the whole of the project folder, the project will load as it should.

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In addition to @Vincent_Vincent’s suggestions, the symptoms indicate an incomplete sync caused perhaps by prematurely stopping the sync or not having your files “offline”. Scrivener expects all files to be on the local disk and not in the “cloud” (whichever that is). Check L&L’s FAQ site for information, and the plethora of questions about this in prior posts.

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  1. SCRIVX is a project control file only.
  2. Your project backup should comprise of the SCRIV folder, which will have the contents described in a prior post. (I don’t see an incomplete backup would be able to keep a SCRIX file while “kindly” disposing of a SCRIV folder. The SCRIVX file would be lost in hyperspace under such circumstances.)
  3. In backing up to the cloud through syncing, your options are set in Scrivener by selecting File → Options → Backup, and you also have the choice of having your synced backup in a ZIP folder.
  4. If doing a manual backup, you could select File → Backup → Backup To… from within Scrivener.
  5. If you opened your SCRIV folder and pulled the SCRIVX file to the cloud, then that’s only the control file you’ve backed up, not your work.
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This is, unfortunately, my best guess as to what happened.