Hi, this is my first post. I’ve been using Scrivener on my iPad for a year and a half, with no issues whatsoever (other than the fact that despite hours of troubleshooting, I never could figure out how to get it to sync to Dropbox and work on it on my MacBook)
About four days ago, I went to open the project that I open and work on almost every single day, and it was frozen. I couldn’t get anything to respond, and the spinning circle of death just went on… spinning.
I exed out of the app and reopened it any times. I turned my iPad off and on. I tried tapping on other chapters/files on the left-side toolbar. Nothing. Frozen on that same page, and no text.
None of my other projects (albeit very tiny ones) are having this issue.
I am freaking out. Crying. This project has been my salvation this past two years, and I have a word document version of it on my computer, but that’s all, and it doesn’t include any of my vast amounts of research. It would be a nightmare to try to copy and past that document all back into a new Scrivener project.
I’m begging for someone to take the time to help me. If you think you can walk me through it, I’ll give you my number. Anything. Please give me my hope back.
Hi flourishfae, and welcome to the forums. I’m sorry to hear about the trouble.
Before we try anything, please make a backup copy of your project just in case. You can do that in Scrivener for iOS by tapping Edit at the top of the Projects list, selecting the project, then tapping the share button in the footer bar where you’ll get the option to email a copy to yourself, or keep a copy in a cloud drive, for example.
Once you’ve done that, try these steps to reset Scrivener on your iOS device (this will not delete your projects):
Use the iPad’s multi-tasking interface to make sure that Scrivener is shut down completely.
Go to the iOS Settings app.
Scroll down to the bottom to find Scrivener.
Select “Reset Scrivener” and then enable all of the switches.
Try launching Scrivener again.
Any difference? If not, we may need to try opening the project on your Mac. I understand you haven’t got your projects syncing to your Mac, but that’s okay. If you don’t have Scrivener for Mac downloaded, please download the trial version of Scrivener there. I think it would be wise to steer clear of any sync services for now, so once the trial is installed, you can instead transfer the project from your iPad to your Mac using the Finder, as explained here: Use the Finder to share files between your Mac and your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch - Apple Support (CA)
Does the project open in Scrivener for Mac? Is all your work in tact? Let us know how that goes and we’ll go from there.
Thank you so much! I just made the backup copy, and I never knew how to do that! I’m scared to do the next part. What do you think the likelihood is that I will loose it all on my iPad? (It’s saved on my iPad, not a dropbox.) I realize you may not be able to answer this question.
It’s unlikely the project will be deleted or affected in any way, as the Reset Scrivener procedure doesn’t touch your projects. Even if it were, you’ve got your backup made now which you can import back into Scrivener if something goes wrong, so don’t worry about data loss.
Okay, thank you! I did all of that first solution, and when I opened the project back up, it kept spinning and spinning with nothing, and then it went back to the exact same frozen page (a page that has/had research and photos that I thought at first was just taking a long time to load) and is still spinning and frozen. I can see part of my index, but since the page still doesn’t respond, I can’t scroll down or anything.
I actually bought the Macbook version of Scrivener, too, so I have that. I have never used it because I couldn’t get it to sync, and didn’t want to risk anything, but I do have it.
I’m going to try that “Using the Finder…” link you shared, and will update you as to my progress.
Hi amickie, I tried to understand that link, but I didn’t, I’m sorry. I wish I could claim to have better tech skills, but I can’t. Do you have any other suggestions?
Also, sorry for the multiple messages, but I wanted to reply to your original message and say that yes, my project opens just fine on my Mac, and all the work is intact. Which is a huge relief. But I would love to fix the fact that it’s still frozen and unresponsive on my iPad.
Oh, so you did manage to get your project over to Mac? The link I sent was just an explanation of how to manually transfer a file from an iOS device to a Mac (i.e. no syncing involved) so that we could see if the project works in Scrivener for macOS. I’m glad to hear it opens correctly there - that’s a good sign.
Could you just clarify again if you’re using Dropbox to sync the project between your Mac and iOS device, or if you’re manually transferring the project between devices?
Okay, now that your project is safely on your Mac, and you have a backup made (you can make another one in Scrivener for macOS via File > Back Up > Back Up Now, if you’d like), can you please delete the copy from your iPad? To do that, tap “Edit” at the top of the Projects list, select the project, and then tap “Delete” in the footer bar.
Once the project is gone from your iPad, move the project from your Mac back to the iPad using the same manual transfer method you used previously.
Is the project still freezing on your iPad? If so, then I would advise you to please zip up your project and send it to us at ios.support@literatureandlatte.com. You can mention my name, Alex, in the subject line and link to this forum thread in the body of your email so that I can pick up your case from there. Perhaps by having a look at the project, we’ll be able to figure out what’s going wrong.
On a side, can I suggest (as you’re probably now aware) that doing regular backups to an external source is absolutely paramount, especially with the sync and other issues this unmaintained iOS version of Scrivener goes.
I use Dropbox sync so I’m able to compile on macOS but write on my iPad, but I back it up to a new copy after every day of writing to two other cloud services separately (iCloud, Google Drive and the Dropbox copy). I also make each backup date-stamped so I have historical copies in a worst case. I’m only at 40,000 words but I’ve been working on this story for 6 years and I would be devastated to lose it due to having no backups.
Do your backups however you wish of course, but please, please back up your work regularly, especially since you have 140,000 words and a load of research material involved.
I do not trust a single source to never go wrong. All the best with your project.