Optimize Mac Storage applies to 2 folders - your Desktop folder in your home folder, and your Documents folder in your home folder. If your Dropbox folder is stored in either of those two locations bad things will happen. On my computer, my Dropbox folder is in my home folder - at the same level as both the Desktop and Documents folders. I set it up that way specifically so that it would match my Linux computer (and I was used to working with Dropbox directly in my home folder). I do not remember what the default location for the Dropbox folder is on the Mac. If you can confirm that your Dropbox folder is not in the folders that iCloud is managing, then we should be able to rule out iCloud as the cause of the issues.
That is not my understanding. I thought they optimise a lot of things but I cannot find documentation of a definitive list. Best I’ve found is System Information User Guide for Mac – Apple Support (UK) where it lists other things. And a separate optional feature is storing your Desktop and Documents in iCloud as described at Store files in iCloud Drive on Mac – Apple Support (UK). This is my understanding.
I do neither. With iCloud I do not “optimise” and with Google and Dropbox I ensure I set folders to be available “offline”. Leads to no issues.
I may have oversimplified what is going on (or I could be completely wrong - it has been known to happen frequently, just ask my wife). My understanding is that the two folders (Desktop and Documents) are optimized if you enable it (the control is under the Options… button at the top of the panel in the first screenshot in my earlier post). Additionally there are files and folders under the hidden Library folder that are optimized depending on which Apple applications are configured to be optimized as well. (Which shouldn’t impact the issue we are troubleshooting here unless the Dropbox folder is in a really weird location under the Library folder).
I completely agree and I am set up the same way. I even check the settings on a regular basis to make sure a software update hasn’t tried to “help me out” by turning the settings on for me (I have had Apple updates turn on iCloud optimization twice so far).
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Since I “do neither”, I’m not an expert or know anything about how these “helpful” features to “optimise” work! 
I created a fake file on iPad and synced to Mac, wrote more on the Mac, synced back to iPad
all fine
used a second fake project from Mac to iPad and back and also fine.
renamed and deleted a lot of trash files in my big project. unlinked, relinked, resynced, restarted, etc
the main project still will not open in scrivener I0s. so I am gonna with it’s a file problem that doesn’t play well with iOS and dropbox and scrivener.
Well, good on you for trying, and yes, at this point seems sure something is broken in that project, so that it just gets transferred over now.
Support may well be able to fix it, and willl surely be interested if they can see the problem show up.
If you are in a hurry, it should likely be safe to copy text out and put that in fresh pages in a fresh project.
Any other things like images or pdfs could well be more problenatic, so anything like that should be fresh from original sources.
Best thoughts can think to offer…
@Tromano …and let us know how it goes, am sure you will, and I think we’d all be quite interested…
Even, yes, on a Monday 
Best
Just to confirm, did you transfer the test projects in exactly the same way as the problem project? As others mentioned, the use of AirDrop is more like Apple File Sharing than Dropbox synchronization, as iOS Scrivener communicates directly through the Dropbox API, not the Dropbox or Files App.
They are both in the Dropbox folder that syncs to scrivener. That’s the same way
And, confirming (as what I read above is not exactly clear), you let Dropbox do the transfer of files from one to the other device with no intervention by you?
Since it now appears that the trouble is project specific, it might be interesting/productive to create a new project and then Drag & Drop the stuff from the trouble project over into it. Start with carrying over everything inside your Draft folder. Assuming you put this new project also in your Dropbox folder — you should be able to close it and then check to see if it syncs alright. If that checks out drop more of your stuff over into the new project. Either all will be well and you will be all good with a new version of your project (yay) or you will hit a point where the new project gives the same error. At that point you will have some idea what file it is in your project that is causing trouble — or can narrow down to it.
gr
p.s. Though you think optimization settings are not involved here, since you have plenty of space on your hard drive, if it was me I would turn them off anyway, for good measure.
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Yes, this is the key question.
I concur. Neither iCloud nor Dropbox is particularly transparent about exactly what their optimization settings do. When troubleshooting a problem like this, you want to reduce the number of potential complicating factors to the absolute minimum.
hmm, hmm. Something interesting is just now being reported over here: https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/crashing-when-opening-or-creating-projects-on-ios/128596
Short story seems to be that there may be a problem with defaults or perhaps more specifically certain Scrivener iOS settings, on the new version.
Though this might be an entirely separate problem, if the original reporter isn’t syncing the project, as it might be interpreted they are saying.
@Tromano might want to try the resetting of Scrivener iOS that’s discussed on the other conversation, and see if she can then open that problematic original project.
More reason for persons experiencing either problem to send the broken projects in to Support…
*and no, I don’t hang around here, looking for trouble. It’s just a sense to share, when I spot something from reading on the forum to learn things…so that writing projects go smoothly…
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Hmm once more. Just checked back, and further development on the other thread shows that the issue is a broken custom font, for at least one of the unopenable projects.
Bad fonts are a plague, very often have broken various software. That this latest iOS Scrivener changed its fonts handling, much to the better and in the Apple way, could still have altered its response to a problem font.
Sifting, there’s a disconnect, though, as far as symptoms reported here – broken fonts shouldn’t get Dropbox excited…probably, and at least in the case of Scrivener folder-projects (because Dropbox won’t attempt to display them as it now does for various other types)
We try here, all of us, but troubleshooting without the case in front of us plus all needed tools is a challenge, and only try-this hints can be given. As we all do try…
- meant to mention, I tried all 50 or so of my projects on iOS, and they are all fine, even one where there’s Korean character writing – which is in a solid, non-problem Korean font…
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so. it’s definitely something in the original project. I deleted all the collections, and that didn’t do anything. still had a ton of trashed files but didn’t want to get rid of all of those for research. so then I started a new blank template and dragged everything over. and that worked! thanks for following the saga!
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It’s good to hear your project was saved, and that the simplest recovery worked.
One more point for Scrivener’s use of simple, readable files as basis.
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