I have a strange problem with Scrivener. Purchased it today and it doesn’t seem to work properly. Whenever I open a project, work on it for a few minutes, Scrivener suddenly doesn’t respond anymore. Right click boxes disappear (only the shadow of the box is visible) and nothing else is clickable. I Can’t reopen the program unless I kill the process.
Sorry if this problem is known, but I couldn’t find anything in the forums. I’m running Windows 10 on a laptop. Maybe someone knows what to do? Thanks!
Are you by chance running the Avast antivirus software and/or running multiple antivirus software applications simultaneously? If Avast, you’ll need to tweak it to disregard/exempt Scrivener. If multiple, you should also cut back to only running one.
Here’s a thread that may describe symptoms similar to what you are experiencing, which led to the above fixes.
thanks for your answer! I’ve seen that some people have problems with AVAST, however I use Bitdefender (only one AV) and I did add multiple exceptions for Scrivener. No use, program still freezes
Given that Bitdefender shows up in the forum several times as being potentially problematic, I’d suggest the following. No guarantees, but worth doing as part of process of elimination.
Search the forums (search field in upper right corner) using “Bitdefender” and review the discussions in which it appears, to see if anything sounds relevant.
Make a note of your Scrivener license/key # and the locations where your projects are located and where the regular backups and the “back up to” backups go.
Download a fresh copy of Scrivener.
Disconnect your wired/wireless Internet connection.
Exit/shutdown your antivirus and firewall apps.
Try using Scrivener. If the problem doesn’t happen, the antivirus is likely the problem and needs further tweaking or replacement.
If the problem still happens, uninstall Scrivener, then reinstall using the copy you just downloaded, and try Scrivener again. If Scrivener works fine, turn antivirus and firewall apps back on and try Scrivener again.
Make sure antivirus and firewall are back on at this point and reconnect to the Internet. You should have a good sense of whether the antivirus/firewall are the problem or not.
If the antivirus/firewall proved to be the problem, tweaking or replacement will be required.
If the antivirus/firewall are not the problem, then will need to look for other candidates. Real-time (continuous) backup apps are a possibility. As are a variety of odds and end apps that may be present.
There’s a (very) small chance that this is an actual bug in Scrivener… but, based on following reports/resolutions of problems here in the forums, the problem is pretty much always the environment (mix of apps and utilities) on the PC that Scrivener finds itself running on.
Review the list of installed programs. Review what things are being launched automatically when Windows starts.
