Scrivener & Dropbox are not cooperating

Scrivener Scrivener for macOS
,
1

MBA M5 Tahoe. Scriv 3. excellent wifi.

my projects stopped opening on ios version; message was no proper binder.

i removed everything from Dropbox. copied in a single project. made sure it worked on desktop version & gave it time to copy fully to Dropbox.\

opened in ios, sync’d, made a change or two, then sync’d before quitting (and fully closing) ios Scriv.

re-opened in desktop, confirmed it worked – but always brought me to the a “sync’d document” binder, which should only happen with conflicts. however, the project was fine. closed & sync’d.

rechecked in ios. project was good.

added a second project & repeated the entire process.

have now added numerous projects, one by one, and now this:

i foolishly tried to upload 2 projects.

despite sync’ing both from desktop version & from ios, and giving the system time to ensure all info was copied to Dropbox (which should be instant, but the actual Dropbox files are located in my Cloud storage), getting issues with Scriv saying there are sync issues, forcing re-syncs repeatedly – reports that the sync conflicts are resolved, i click OK, search indexes are rebuilt, the project opens - and it wants to sync with (unchanged, untouched) mobile version. endless loop.

on iphone, i sync, go into a project, am told there are synch issues, it resyncs, then the project seems usable. i leave Scriv ios, making sure it’s sync’d. open the desktop version of the project. it’s finally ok (after giving the sync’d document screen for no reason).

it seems like it can just about cope with a single project file being sync’d but no more. i didn’t realize until going through this that Dropbox is actually on Cloud – is this new? is this why it suddenly broke all my ios versions?

i don’t know if this is Scriv or DB or Mac, but between this and the god-awful lagging unless i store my files directly on my hard disk with no cloud or DB, it has made my favorite app a massive, unpleasant pain.

but i have discovered a number of other apps to replace much of what i was using Scrivener for, so there’s that. i love Bear, for one.

and please, no more blaming me or other users for doing things wrong or poor set-ups. i’ve been using Scrivener from its inception, my equipment is all excellent, and i’m obeying the processes. clearly Scrivener isn’t functioning well in this environment of Tahoe & faster Macs, so figure out why, please.

2

This is untrue. The Synced document collection reflects all documents in which the synced version had changes.

Could you clarify what this means? Having a file accessible to both iCloud and Dropbox is pretty much guaranteed to cause problems.

This appears to be a new setting in Tahoe. It is configurable, and we strongly recommend disabling it.

Yes, if Scrivener has to download projects from the cloud to the local system, there will be a delay while it does so. This has always been true. What appears to be new is the possibility that both Dropbox and iCloud can attempt to access the same files, which can result in one of them “optimizing” the file off to their server, where the other service can’t reach it.

Just to be clear, desktop Scrivener always saves files to and opens files from the local disk. It has only minimal awareness that cloud services even exist. What happens after that is entirely up to the operating system and whatever cloud service(s) have access to your files.

2 Likes
3

what are you talking about? the files are in Dropbox. are you saying that opening a project stored on dropbox means it’s copied to my local, used, then re-copied to DB?

and as i noted, i waited between desktop & iphone to give everything time to “settle”. it may well be that DB or Cloud is causing issues, but it involves Scrivener. and it’s making my use of it really crappy.

4

The Dropbox software creates a folder on the local disk. Scrivener creates a project in that folder. Dropbox uploads the project to the Dropbox server and, depending on your settings, either removes or keeps the local copy.

If iCloud has access to the Dropbox folder, then it also uploads the project to the iCloud server and, depending on your settings, either removes or keeps the local copy.

Scrivener itself has no cloud access. In order for it to edit a file, that file must be resident on the local hard disk. (Note that this has always been true.)

If either Dropbox or iCloud has removed the file from the local disk, they have to go get it. That will take time, depending on the speed of your connection and the speed of their servers. If both services have access to the same file, then there can also be a conflict, for instance if Dropbox is looking for a file that iCloud has. (The potential for this conflict appears to be new in Tahoe.)

Nothing about Scrivener’s file handling has changed since the release of Scrivener 3. If you are suddenly having problems, then something about Dropbox, iCloud, Mac OS, and/or your connectivity has changed, and that’s where you should look for a solution.

2 Likes
5

(The potential for this conflict appears to be new in Tahoe.) that’s what i’ve been saying! it’s causing Scrivener all kinds of problelms.

it does not matter who broke things. something broke Scrivener’s ability to use the facilities, and that’s something L&L has no choice but to look into. ignoring it is telling users that they don’t care about them

6

We have looked into it.

There is a setting in Tahoe that gives iCloud access to Dropbox. Turn that setting off.

There is a setting in Dropbox that allows Dropbox to keep files exclusively on their server. Turn that setting off, too.

5 Likes