Projects suddenly won't open

Scrivener
1

Hello - suddenly, all my projects display the following message when I try and open:

"The project at “/Users/jamestichenor/Dropbox/Projects/Active/Apocalypse/Latest Draft/BU/Apocalypse_Novel-v004_r003.scriv” seems to be of an older format, but no binder.scrivproj file could be found inside it. It may be missing or corrupt, possibly because of a problem with the device on which it is stored, or because of a synchronisation problem.

Try ctrl-clicking on the project in the Finder and selecting “Show Package Contents”, then look for a file entitled ‘binder.scrivproj’. Ensure it has not been renamed by a backup routine. If it does not exist, try restoring from a backup."

I tried to do above but quickly got nowhere. And for ALL my projects to start doing this, there must be something wrong?

I can create a new Scrivener project and import the old project in, but that’s a bit of an odd hassle - thought I should check here to see if something is up?

I am using ver 3.2.3 on OSX 12.3.1. All files live in dropbox and locally synced.

Thanks!
jt

2

Hello zampana.

In MacOS Monterey, you may encounter an error if your Scrivener project is stored on Dropbox. If you seen an error stating that some of its files or contents are not accessible, then you may need to adjust your Dropbox settings so that your project is stored locally within your Dropbox folder rather than in offline storage.

I know you already said that you have your projects syncing locally, but I’m thinking this is still an incompatibility issue between Dropbox and MacOS Monterey behaving as though your Scrivener projects are stored offline-only.

First, please open a Finder window via your Mac’s Dock. Then, please select your Dropbox folder in the left-hand sidebar. Next, please use a Ctrl+Click on the folder where your Scrivener projects are stored.

You will want to select “Make available offline” in the list of Dropbox services near the bottom of the little panel that opens. That will force Dropbox to download all of the contents of that folder to your Mac’s local storage.

That should force Dropbox to download all of the Scrivener project’s files and folders, including its internal index file. And, your Mac should be able to open that project once the material is all downloaded.

Once Dropbox has finished downloading your project, you should see a green check mark when it has finished saving all of your materials to local storage.

You may also want to review your Dropbox settings to confirm whether new files are stored automatically for online-only storage or are kept locally on your computer.

To do this, please go to the Dropbox icon on your Mac’s menu bar and select your user ID and then select Preferences.

In the panel that opens, please select the Sync tab and review your settings in the New files default drop-down.

You can also click the “Select Folders” button and choose which folders are kept in local storage if you want to keep only a few items locally. But, that may still encounter issues with offline-syncing for Scrivener’s “file package” project format.

3

That fixed it - thanks so much!