I am using two macs, a desktop and an Air. As much as possible, I want these machines to be the same (mirrored). Doesn’t work perfectly, so for working material, I use a copy on iCloud Drive, which generally seems to present the same thing on either machine. When I need to switch machines, I shut down Scrivener on the machine I’ve been using. Later, when I open the 2nd machine and go to the file I’ve been working, I get a message that my work file is open, and do I want to make a copy. Which presents all sorts of opportunities for error. What can I do to prevent that?
Have you ensured that the file is stored locally on each computer? Scrivener is not designed to work directly on cloud files.
**Turn off “Optimise Mac Storage” in System Settings > Apple ID > iCloud
**
You also have to ensure that syncing is completed. iCloud has been lazy with syncing in the past.
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Agree with @RuffPub. This happens when you close Scrivener and turn off your computer more or less immediately. One of the files in the project package is user.lock, which is set when you open the project and deleted when you close it.
However, deleting that file on the cloud server seems to me to be the last part of the synchronising process, so if you shut down your computer too quickly after closing Scrivener, the synchronisation stops and the user.lock can be left behind on the server.
So when you try to open the project on your other computer, it reads the user.lock and tells you that the project is open on another machine.
In the past, I’ve had this happen once or twice with collaborators using both Sync and Dropbox, and both of those are much quicker at synchronising than iCloud. They also have menu-bar items that indicate the status on the server—much more visible than iCloud where you have to navigate to the folder for that.
The answer is, as long as you are sure that it’s not open on either machine: using the Finder, Right/Ctrl-click on the project.scriv in question, select Show Package Contents from the dropdown, open the files folder and delete the user.lock file you find there. Then close that Finder window and get to work.
Mark
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