I use the Lock Group View Mode toggle for most high level folders like this, locked to Outliner. I think that may be enough of a setting for this, given this condition may occur at any point, and not just in one single folder.
That aside, I think something isn’t working as well as it used to, in the Mac version. It used to fork the Scrivenings session building process in such a way that it could be instantly interrupted by navigating elsewhere, or switching view modes. In theory the problem itself should never be a problem to begin with.