Scrivener 3 stops responding when doing a backup

Sometimes I need to walk away from my WIP for a long enough period that my system goes to sleep. Upon waking, Scrivener works fine. I can write, edit, take snapshots, and save, BUT when I select Create a Backup, I will get the progress box, but the application goes into a not responding state. It is frozen.

Eventually, when I x-out and end the process, the app will close (as expected). Relaunching after that usually results in no errors, and a backup can be created without issue. Sometimes, however, my project, upon relaunching, tells me that it is already open. I choose “continue” and can continue without issue.

Any advice is appreciated.

Below are my OS specs. The Evil Bastards at Microsoft forced a Win 11 upgrade some months ago and I will never forgive them.

Edition Windows 11 Home
Version 23H2
Installed on ‎9/‎7/‎2023
OS build 22631.3447
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22688.1000.0

Does the user id you are using have writer permissions to the backup folder? Exactly what is the full path name for the backup location?

yes. I can back up fine if my system didn’t “sleep” before. My normal process is to snapshot the docs I have worked on when done, and when finished for the day, I save and then I backup. It always works fine EXCEPT if Scrivener was open when the system went to sleep. AND it only happens on that Win 11 Laptop. On my tower, I don’t have these problems at all.

Well, until resolved why not close Scrivener on laptop when done before it sleeps. Sleep mode must be interfering. Still would be good to know backup location.

This is good advice. You can set an auto-quit timer in Scrivener, just make sure it’s shorter than your sleep interval.

My best guess would be that the hard drive hasn’t fully woken from sleep when you attempt to do the backup. Check the Windows power save settings to see if the drive sleeps separately from the system as a whole.

You might also try making a small change and waiting for it to autosave – the interval is probably just a few seconds – then running the backup. If that fixes the issue, then there’s a high likelihood that the hard drive sleeping is the cause.

If i know I am going to be away that long, I do… but sometimes I don’t know it in advance

but good advice. Thank you

I’ll look into it. thanks

Under options and General > Startup you set a time to do auto backups and close up to 300 minutes/5 hours. So even if walk away Scrivener will close and backup.

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