HELP! NaNo version lost 3k words!

Scrivener Scrivener for Windows
1

After a reboot, I opened Scrivener, it gave a message about an .rtf file (too quick to record the text of the message), and my first text file is EMPTY!

Is there any way to recover?

I’m afraid to close and reopen the project, or do ANYTHING, at this point :frowning:

2

Since you haven’t closed yet, navigate to the project’s .scriv folder in Windows Explorer, right-click it and choose “Send to / compressed (zipped) folder”. That will make a backup of the project as it is, so you can continue doing things without fear of further damage.

Then try closing and reopening. This sounds like a bug another couple users reported, which we’re working on tracking down, and the good news is that it was somewhat superficial–the text files appeared blank because the .scrivx file had some problem reading them, but they’re still present in the project and contain your writing. If the reload of the project doesn’t work, you can send the backup of the project to support AT literatureandlatte DOT com and I’ll take a look at it to see what we can do. It’d also be helpful at that point to run a Windows search for any unique words or phrases from the missing text–if the RTF files are still there in the project, this should find them, even though they’re not loading properly in Scrivener.

3

OMG. I closed it, and opened again, and they reappeared.

Now, I need to go change my pants.

4

Huzzah! Yes, it’s some error Scrivener’s having reading the files, but they’re all still in the project. If you have a chance, after you get some new pants, could you check to see if Windows has a copy of the error message and paste that here if so? I haven’t seen any reports on this for 1.0, but I’d just like to get all the information on the bug as I can to make sure it’s been dealt with, or to make sure it gets dealt with if it’s still lingering.

To grab the report generated by Windows*:

  1. Open the Control Panel and choose Administrative Tools (under System and Security if you’re viewing categories)
  2. Open Computer Management
  3. In the tree view, select System Tools\Event Viewer\Windows Logs\Application
  4. In the window on the right, you should see a list of reports Information, Error, and Warning. Group these by date and sort by level, and then look for any errors that occurred at the time of your crash–the source column should say something like “Application Error” or “Application Hang”. Selecting any one should show you the details in the lower part of the window; you can also double click to open it in a new window. Make sure that “Scrivener.exe” is referenced in the description of the error, and then use the Copy button to send the contents to your clipboard (if you get an option, choose “copy details as text” rather than “copy table”).
  5. Paste the report details in a post here or send them to support AT literatureandlatte DOT com
  • These steps are for Windows 7; Vista and XP may be slightly different. In XP I believe the path in step 3 is just System Tools\Event Viewer\Application
5

Nuthin’. And I’ve done my share of hunting through event logs, I’m a developer.

Phooey.

Well, at least I got my words back, I’d have MISSED them!

Note to self, DAILY backups. Without fail. Not every three days, EVERY day.

6

Hm. Thanks for checking.

Amen. :slight_smile: