From the introduction of the iPod, Apple’s selling point is that “I just works” in syncing among devices. With Scrivener in its current state, it JUST DOESN’T WORK. Please don’t give me hints, workarounds, hacks, etc. Just MAKE IT WORK, that’s the idea. Nothing here has given me any joy. Many of us make our living with this. This is absolutely and completely unacceptable, particularly since we’ve given up our money for it. Do your beta testing before releasing to the public. MAKE IT WORK, that’s your job, it is not on us to figure out how to de-bug your software, unless we volunteer for it or you pay US for it.
IT WORKS FOR ALMOST EVERYONE.
That’s why Literature & Latte hasn’t SEEN a case of it failing. Until they do, they can’t use developer tools to find the problem. Even when they do, they can only report it to Apple.
It’s an Apple issue, not a Scrivener issue.
It’s a Scrivener issue is sync becomes unreliable because the app has to use workarounds in order to make its sync work on its complicated file format. That’s calling for things to ultimately break – and they did.
All the flaunted power of the app is of no use if it cannot be used. Users not on this forum will not care whose issue it is. The issue is there. Other apps work fine. Period.
“Almost everyone” is a fine expression to use on a 19-page long forum thread with numerous different users reporting the problem – and that’s not counting the vast numbers who will never register on a support forum.
It worked fine for me on an old device. It still work on another (2017 iPad Pro). But not on my new phone. That sure looks like a hardware problem to me.
Have you isolated the project (s) that are causing the crash?
If so, have you submitted a copy to L&L for testing?
If not, then why not help try to identify the causes of the issue?
And for what it’s worth , I have 1.3 million words in Ulysses, as it’s my main note repository, but I’d never see it as a substitute for Scrivener for long-form writing.
Not strictly true. There have been reports of other apps with same issue which suggests an Apple issue. Add to that L&L have been unable to replicate the issue with any of their iOS devices. Demanding an immediate resolution is asking them to guess what the Apple iOS code issue is then asking them to guess at a solution that may or may not work, may cause other problems.
In my case I found 1 old project caused issue. Wasn’t my largest or my smallest. All I can say is it was started on Mac V2 and upgraded to Mac V3.
As a long time user of Scrivener, also affected by the problem with synchronizing, I am disappointed by the discussions and the reaction of the support. In some post I read: “Only a few users are affected and L&L cannot reproduce the problem.”
In our Facebook group, almost a quarter of the iOs users are affected. Mostly it’s users like me who are using the latest hardware. The fact is, with the last version of iOs, it worked fine, but not anymore. The sync failure makes Scrivener for iOs almost useless and manual syncing through the iCloud is a cumbersome process. This is a step backwards for me, as I built my authoring and eBook production on the interaction of both versions. I hope for an early solution and that the problem is taken seriously.
Whatever the intention, kewms’/ Katherine’s post, as quoted and commented on above, has been snipped. The result is a distortion of the closing paragraph’s intention––expression of a personal observation––and the entire post itself. Reading it in its entirety gives one the author’s actual intent:
This bug(s) is frustrating for everyone affected, no doubt, especially and including L&L. Does anyone really think that everything possible, within this small company’s capabilities, is not being done to resolve it?
In the meantime, there are other methods to transfer between machines (including using the cloud) to get work done. I understand that some find them not ideal and disruptive to their normal workflow, but they’re easily learned, habituated to and effective.
If there was an easy solution they would have found it. But there isn’t. Some users have problems with the latest hardware, others don’t. Some have problems with big projects, others don’t.
The only thing the problems have in common is iOS 13, so it’s basically an Apple problem, which doesn’t make it easier to solve.
How many members of your group have taken the further step of isolating the project that causes the crash and submitting a copy to support? It sounds like your group could provide a great for diagnostics. Or they could just sit in the sidelines and complain.
I tried and failed. Small projects worked, but my main project did not. Other users got along because they only manage small projects. But none of that matters. Before, it worked perfectly, with all projects and all sizes. So the question is, what happened with the move to iOs 13? Is it a problem of iOs or Scrivener and how do you get it back to working the way it was before?
From what we have been able to determine, iOS is shutting the synchronization process down because of memory issues. The problem probably lies in either Dropbox or iOS, since those are the two entities responsible for synchronization.
As noted, though, we have not yet been able to find a reproduction case, which makes troubleshooting very difficult.
Katherine
"From what we have been able to determine, iOS is shutting the synchronization process down because of memory issues. The problem probably lies in either Dropbox or iOS, since those are the two entities responsible for synchronization.
As noted, though, we have not yet been able to find a reproduction case, which makes troubleshooting very difficult. "
Or, perhaps, Scrivener could be more efficient in its syncing? With 20 pages of folks reporting issues, you can’t find a reproduction case? Sorry, neither of these excuses holds water.
If Scrivener has to use complex workarounds to have sync work on iOS, to the point where it cannot work reliably for everyone, then it is certainly time to change the sync model. This faithful users can certainly understand and wait.
If all we hear is “we can’t reproduce the issue, so meh”, we will answer in kind: “app doesn’t sync, so meh to it”.
No, we don’t have a reproduction case. If you think you have one, you’re welcome to send the problem project to our support address:
mac.support@literatureandlatte.com
Scrivener’s approach to synchronization is a direct result of the project structure, which in turn is a consequence of Scrivener’s ability to incorporate a wide variety of research materials. Even if rewriting the project structure – and thus the entire program – were desirable, doing so would certainly not provide a near term solution.
Katherine
Have you isolated and submitted the project that is crashing for you? 20 pages of people complaining are no help if they don’t try to solve the problem.
I thought you’d already established that a project can exhibit the problem on one device but sync as normal on another device … even if they’re the same iPhone model and iOS version.
If that’s the case, how do you establish what’s causing the problem? If it’s not related to project or device?
Yes. That’s exactly the issue, and why it’s so hard to fix.
In the ideal world, troubleshooting would work something like this:
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Identify a project and device combination that always fails AND is controlled by an L&L employee.
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Wipe the device to factory settings. Reinstall Scrivener and Dropbox and nothing else. Does it still fail?
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If so, celebrate. If not, add applications back until it does.
So far, we still haven’t managed step one.
Katherine
That’s EXACTLY the point, lunk.
And that suggests that it is an iOS problem and, if it is a question of memory handling, that it is possibly affected by the new multi-tasking part and how iOS handles other apps, which means that it is completely out of reach for L&L to handle.