I have been using this app religiously since 2014 and in the last few weeks, due to random issues, I have lost so much of my work that it sickens me to even think about using Scrivener again.
The issues started with my projects all suddenly saying ‘incompatible’. Opening them up from a backup seemed to fix the issue, until I started finding blank files. They’d look fine on the corkboard, the icons in the listings also showed they still contained stuff… until I clicked on them. Then the icons went blank to match the documents themselves, though sometimes the notes would still be there on the side.
Some I was able to save by reopening the backup, or finding an earlier backup; but not all.
Now some of the projects are saying incompatible again and I am just done. Everything is up to date, it’s not even doing it with all the projects this time, and I’ve only been using the mac version for awhile so there isn’t any worry about cross-platform syncing causing problems… mainly because the windows version stopped working and refused to open any existing project unless I upgraded. I was willing to just deal with that, since I do most of my writing on my macbook anyway, but randomly losing files full of work is the line for me.
My trust in this project has been shattered. I don’t even know the full extent of the loss between all of my many projects and I am honestly not looking forward to finding out.
The “incompatible” note can also come from missing files.
Where are your projects stored? If they are in a cloud service of sorts, it could be a synchronisation issue.
If they are on your Mac, make sure you have the option to “optimize storage” (sorry, not near a Mac right now) disabled, where macOS decides on a whim to move some of your files to iCloud. Scrivener assumes that each of its files (and there are a lot in a project) are always available at any time. If it has to wait for them to be downloaded from the cloud, that could cause the issues you are seeing.
I think @dirkhaun has asked the right questions to get started here—namely, where are your projects saved? Where are your live files saved, and where are your backups saved? Are your files being backed up to iCloud (many people have the Desktop & Documents backup option checked in iCloud Options under System Preferences) and do you have the any Optimize Storage options turned on (Apple logo → About This Mac → Storage → Manage).
Typically, when Scrivener is displaying binder titles and such but documents are appearing as blank, the data isn’t actually gone, it just isn’t readable by the program, such as in the case of a cloud sync error or the files not being available locally like @dirkhaun mentioned. The “incompatible” error also commonly results from a cloud error, so my guess based on the information you’ve provided thus far is that would be the best place to start.
Also, unless you had Scrivener 3 on your Mac and Scrivener 1 on your Windows computer or did a free trial of Scrivener 3 and didn’t export it back to the Scrivener 1 project type before going back to Scrivener 1, you should not have needed to upgrade to open any files on your Windows computer, so your problems may actually predate switching to the Mac. Again, we’d be looking at where your files were stored—either a cloud error or potentially your live files and backups being stored in the same folder, causing data corruption or overwriting issues.