Snapshot in Tutorial Freezing my Computer

WillP · January 13, 2012, 6:02pm

Hello
Just got Scrivener for new project. Going through tutorial, when I get to 5g Snapshot, if I do as instructed, i.e. documents - snapshot - take snapshot, the computer freezes, there’s no ‘force quit’ instruction for Scrivener as I see it, so I have to restart the computer. Can you help?
Macbook Air Mac OS X 10.6.8
Obvs, a little reluctant to start my book project without sorting this function out.
Thanks
Will

Hugh · January 13, 2012, 7:03pm

As far as I can remember, 10.6.8 is the same as 10.7.2 in this respect: you’ll find a “Force Quit” command, followed by a list of the currently-open applications, under the Apple menu on the extreme left of the menu bar.

But I can’t explain why Snapshot should freeze your computer.

KB · January 13, 2012, 8:00pm

Yes, as Hugh says, you can Force Quit any program from the Apple menu.

Of course, you shouldn’t need to do that at all, and I’ve never heard of anyone else having this problem. How are you taking the snapshot? If you are using the keyboard shortcut, what happens if you use the menu item instead?

Thanks and all the best,
Keith

Rdale · January 13, 2012, 9:14pm

Hint: if you get the spinning beachball when you try to select the “Apple” menu, switch to another program first. You’ll get the same list of programs in the Force Quite window that will pop up.

nom · January 14, 2012, 12:13am

Or use the Cmd-Opt-Esc shortcut.

WillP · January 16, 2012, 3:45pm

Okay, thanks. I now know how to use the ‘force quit’ for Scrivener. But do you have advice on the more important issue on how to stop Snapshot freezing Scrivener? Nb I was using the menu Snapshot but the Cmd-5 method produces the same freezing and the same happens when I try to Snapshot a file of my own rather than the Tutorial file.

It seems pretty important to me to fix this before starting writing a book on Scrivener. Your advice appreciated.

WillP · January 16, 2012, 3:57pm

And the same thing happens when I use “snapshot with title”.

nom · January 16, 2012, 11:55pm

Sounds like you should email Support directly to problem-solve this.

KB · January 17, 2012, 10:40am

Hi,

Could you please try the following?

Open Terminal.app from Applications/Utilities.
In Scrivener, take a snapshot to cause the freeze.
In Terminal.app, type “sample Scrivener 10 -file ~/documents/scriv_snapshot_sample.txt” and hit return.
Wait 10 seconds and then look in your ~/Documents folder. There should now be a file entitled scriv_snapshot_sample.txt there. Please attach that to your reply, or copy and paste the contents. (You can Force Quit Scrivener now.)

Also, please navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Scrivener/Logs in the Finder and locate the file Console.log. Also attach that to your reply (or copy and paste it - that can be opened in a plain text editor too.)

Finally, please open Console.app from Applications/Utilities, select “All Messages”, and copy and paste that into your reply too.

(It might be a good idea to reply three times, once with each piece of information, to make it easier to see which is which seeing as there may be a lot of information here.)

The above should let me see what is going on on your computer during snapshots.

Thanks and all the best,
Keith

WillP · January 17, 2012, 4:19pm

First attachment.

WillP · January 17, 2012, 4:20pm

This one actually has the attachment.
scriv_snapshot_sample.txt (10.9 KB)

WillP · January 17, 2012, 4:24pm

There’s no Scrivener file in the Application Support folder in the library.

WillP · January 17, 2012, 4:28pm

I think these are the messages from when the snapshot froze the computer today.

Thanks for your help.

17/01/2012 16:03:38 [0x0-0x47047].com.microsoft.Word[834] Tue Jan 17 16:03:38 dhcp-10-249-67-36.fas.harvard.edu Microsoft Word[834] : kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 2487
17/01/2012 16:03:38 [0x0-0x47047].com.microsoft.Word[834] Tue Jan 17 16:03:38 dhcp-10-249-67-36.fas.harvard.edu Microsoft Word[834] : kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x9b7
17/01/2012 16:15:14 com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[109] ([0x0-0x47047].com.microsoft.Word[834]) Exited: Killed
17/01/2012 16:15:27 [0x0-0xc00c0].com.apple.iTunes[2549] AppleGVA:: Error creating the accelerator 1
17/01/2012 16:15:45 com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[109] ([0x0-0x35035].com.literatureandlatte.scrivener2[312]) Exited: Terminated

KB · January 17, 2012, 7:34pm

Hi,

Thanks for these. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be anything obvious in there.

There should be a Scrivener folder in your Application Support folder, though - make sure you are looking inside ~/Library and not /Library (where the tilde represents your home folder, so on my machine it’s in /users/keithblount/Library/Application Support/Scrivener, for instance).

Thanks and all the best,
Keith

WillP · January 17, 2012, 8:05pm

Now that I have found the application support file / console.log you mention, trying to open or attach it gives the message “The uploaded file is empty”.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks.

KB · January 18, 2012, 10:40am

Hi,

The next thing to try is to move Scrivener to the Trash, then re-download it and reinstall it. I am wondering if the snapshot files inside the tutorial project have somehow got corrupted in the original download and install. It seems odd that only they would be affected, but it’s plausible, because Step 5g already has a snapshot associated with it and it could well be that the snapshot file is causing problems - that shouldn’t happen, of course, which is why I think it might be corrupted.

What happens if you try to take a snapshot of another document - not Step 5g?

Thanks and all the best,
Keith