Losing Scratchpad files

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
1

They vanished.

Yesterday Scrivener exited with an error message.

Now I check the directory the scratchpad files were in (a Dropbox directory) and it is totally empty.

Is there some protocol or risk associated with Scratchpad that is not shared with the standard backup and restore?

2

Scratch Pad stores its data as individual files, by default one RTFD file per note. It aggressively checks that folder for modifications, and updates the window as they are made. Thus you can use your phone to write notes into the Dropbox folder where they are stored, and they will appear in Scrivener shortly after Dropbox syncs. The rest is handled entirely by whatever is messing with that folder, Dropbox in this case. You should be able to go into the DB website and restore the missing files.

I’m not sure what you are referring to by standard backup and restore. Is this something that happened after you used Time Machine or something similar? TM should just treat these like ordinary files, there is nothing special about them really, but if you roll back the system to a point prior to their existence, it would make sense for them to be removed.

3

Do keep in mind that ScratchPad files are not part of any particular project, and therefore will not be saved as part of Scrivener’s automatic project backups.

Katherine

4
  1. Yes, because the files were in Dropbox, I was able to “roll back” and restore them. I am not aware of any relation between a backup to Time Machine and this occurrence of the files vanishing.

Also, I understand that they are not part of a particular project.

But what might have caused them to vanish? Something as simple as Scrivener crashing? Is this knowable, or something that can be guessed at?

5

That I don’t know. That is why I was asking if Time Machine had been used to restore recently, it was the best thing I could think of. We don’t have any reports of notes vanishing, that I can think of.

Something that might be a clue: what was the nature of the error message you got? Have you seen it since then? If you can relay the wording of the message, or what type of warning it was (a crash dialogue window for instance) that would help.

6

Time Machine had not been used to restore prior to these notes vanishing. Yes, your software did “crash”, a day or two before I noticed the notes vanishing. I don’t recall the exact wording of the crash, but did check the box to send the report to your company.

Because i don’t use the scratchpad each and every time that I open Scrivener, it’s difficult to be more precise.