Not sure if this is the right place for this, but after using Scrivener for 10+ years with zero issues, I now have a strange bug. In my current project, I can access all the folders and subitems in my manuscript and notes with no problem… except one item. It happens to be the one item that has a table in it. If I try to look at this item, my MAC hangs, starts using GB of memory and I have to force quit.
If I open an older backup version of this project from a month ago, I can access this item with the table with no issues. In the current project file, I created a new blank item that I can access with no hanging. I copy-pasted the table from the working project, and it pasted without issue and I can edit it, but if I then click to another item and try to come back to the table, the hang problem occurs again.
My options are: continue on with my current project file and work without the table (it’s my project outline so this isn’t ideal), or to attempt to bring my month-old backup file to current somehow, since the table item doesn’t cause hanging in that version (yet). Not sure what to do….
I’m on MAC Tahoe 26.5.1 with Scrivener 3.5.2. This was happening on an older version of Scrivener and an older MAC operating system but I updated both to try to solve this issue (the issue persists). This is a fully text project, no images, not a massive project relative to others I’ve worked with.
If anyone knows what’s going on and a way to fix my current file, that would be awesome to figure out!
You can drag and drop Binder items between two projects. Seems like the simplest fix would be to drag & drop the doc with the table in it from the functional backup copy to the binder of your working project. Once that is all good, delete the problem item from the Binder of your current project.
That doesn’t diagnose what is going on with that document, of course, but based on your description of what does and doesn’t work, it bids fair to get you out of the trouble you’re having.
Is the table quite hefty? Particularly, is the table larger in the current version vs. the one in your backups that has no issues? And do you sync with an iOS device (iPhone/iPad)?
For a lot of things, utilizing the outliner is a better option, and this is the way I’d generally recommend for creating a scene list our outline in Scrivener. You’ll get better functionality than with tables overall and you don’t have the table glitches Scrivener sometimes struggles with.
Basically to do that, you create an outline folder and then create a document in that folder for every story beat or chapter or scene or whatever increment you like to plan/outline in. View the folder in Outliner view and you can utilize metadata and synopsis to get any information in the Outliner view you’d like to see there.
table is exactly the same between the two versions actually. It is 2 columns and maybe 50 rows, so not huge I don’t think. Not syncing the project with anything. Though, thinking about it, this time period may cover when I shifted the project from my windows Scrivener to my MAC scrivener - that might be the difference.
(The table isn’t exactly a strict outline - so the outliner functionality isn’t quite what I need but I’ll play around to see if I can somehow make that work. I’ve always had the sense that Scrivener doesn’t like tables so I’m not totally surprised this is where my first issue has appeared!)
You say “dragging and dropping the table”, but I am going to suppose you mean you dragged and dropped the binder item (doc) containing the table.
Well, if that did not work, I would say that the table is not actually your problem… Though I have no helpful suggestion about what might be going on here.
yes, that’s what I meant, dragging the binder item containing the table.
I’m going to attempt to create a new table in a new binder item from scratch in the current project, see if rebuilding afresh it avoids the problem but lets me continue with the current file. Fingers crossed!
Another idea you might test to see whether it’s the table or the content:
After securing the deviant table somewhere, highlight the entire table and reduce all rows to zero. The cells will disappear, but the text will remain, granted as jumbled pieces. If the problem persists, you’ll know it’s something in the text. If not, you can rightly assume it’s the cells’ construct.
If it’s the text, copy the content to a plain text editor and reconstruct the table through a Copy/Cut and paste using Paste and Match Style.