I have installed Scrivener on a new machine (Windows 10 64 bit professional), and copied my six scrivener project folders across.
However, on opening any of the folders I get the error message that it appears the project is already open and I have the choice of opening it, or making a copy. If I open it, and then close it without making any changes I get the same error message again next time I attempt to open it. To resolve the problem have to make a change (ie insert space then delete it) and close the file. When I next attempt to open it it opens fine.
I’m just a user, but when a Scrivener file is opened, a user.lock file is created to stop someone else (or you) from opening and changing the same file. It isn’t setup to handle two people simultaneously changing a file.
It sounds like you copied user.lock files over when you made the transfer. My recommendation, is to make sure scrivener is closed, then rename a user.lock file to xuser.lock. That should be enough to stop Scrivener from using it. Then open that project and if there is no problem, then you’ve found the issue and you can rename or delete the user.lock files in the other project folders.
You’ll find the lock files in your /project name/files folder.
Of course, if it works, go back and delete the xuser.lock files
Hi Steve, that looks like the cause. I run automatic backup of all data drives to a Synology NAS. It is set up to automatically copy the latest version of all files (and not to delete them when they get deleted on the computer). As the NAS is a network drive it was easier to copy all these automatically backed-up files down from the NAS, than go through the hassle of setting up my old computer and copying the files from there to a portable drive, then recopyinging them again to the new computer. As you said though, opening Scrivener creates a lock file which is then automatically copied to the NAS (and not up deleted when I close the project), So when I copied the project folders down to the new computer’s project folders that came with it.
While I do back-up to a zip file this is only when I’ve finished a chapter (so not necessarily completely upto date) and as I said it was easier to copy the entire directory down from the NAS - especially as we’re always warned on the forums to copy everything!
Thanks again
It is surprising how often “backup everything” screws you up. Clients can move files within a folder somewhere else, then when we setup a new computer, all those files are back! Emails, long since purged, trashed or filed re-appear because a normal backup does not delete stuff that was moved or deleted.
I make normal backups, and sometimes also a kind of backup called EXACT COPY which copies the current folders deleting from the folder what is not there. Again, in addition, not instead of. Those backups are usually better for restoring to a new computer. Also, I backup zips on every close.