I have lately encountered some strange behavior regarding scenes. I am working on a rather big project, which is 55 chapters and a total of 447 scenes.
I save the file locally on my MacBook Pro - so, no cloud involved.
This past week, I’ve noticed the following:
One scene entirely disappeared out of nowhere (I had a backup on a different app, so I recovered it)
Two sequential scenes with different titles ended up having the same exact text (again, I recovered from a different app backup)
Two sequential scenes ended up with the same title, but their internal text intact (I know because I copy-paste the chapter and scene names to a spreadsheet for organizing - and the data there was correct on the initial copy)
Has anyone else encountered that problem?
I am starting to become uncomfortable using the app – and thus keep at least 2-3 backups of the text whenever I work on it (one backup per different app), keeping them constantly updated with every edit.
These are very unusual symptoms for someone not using some of the more invasive cloud services (those that would “optimise disk usage” for example, like iCloud, which is a sly way of saying “deletes local files whenever it wants to”).
I would definitely double-check you aren’t in fact using iCloud Drive. It’s surprisingly easy to accidentally do so, given that it has settings to sync your “Desktop and Documents”, which for many people will be almost everything outside of areas like music storage and such. Compounding with this is what seems to have been a rather poorly tested update to the most recent version of macOS 26 which made “File Provider” more like “Files Sometimes Provided”. This is Apple’s technology for local file change detection, and orchestration of sync in general, but as an entirely local system, may in some odd cases be in use without actually using a cloud service.
Also consider that sync is sync. “Cloud” is just one particular mechanism by which we might use sync. If you use something like Chronosync for example, that will work similarly as they do, but between two offline hard drives if you wish.
Do you have an external drive you could use for a bit? A really easy way of making sure nothing is messing with your data is to host your project on an external SSD for a bit and seeing if all the weirdness goes away. If it does, then you can spend the time looking into the state of your user folder, and whether or not its actually as cloud-free as thought.
Tech has been my strong suit since 1984, so, I am 100% certain iCloud is not allowed anywhere near the local files. Windows has grown worse - but I still have a system with a local account only (on Windows 11, which I recently threw in the trash for Linux as a companion to my Macs).
What surprised me is that the issues happened within minutes while I was working. I didn’t close the program and then found things missing when I reopened them.
And yes, I do have an external 2TB SSD that I utilize for manual backups (file copies). Though I plug it in occasionally - as my 13” MacBook Pro I use for moving around, has an extra mobile monitor, which takes one USB. And then, I have a dock for the rest (like wireless mouse, direct Ethernet connection, and power charge routing). So, the USB connection to the drive can be unstable though it. I’ve tried.
For the moment, I do a lot of exports and copy texts to other applications as I’m working. So, I was thinking if it might be a database variable issue or misdirection. Those can get pretty opinionated at times and cause such issues.
It happened again - just on its own. Scene 246 took the title of scene 245 (can’t attach the files just yet, as it’s a new account for me) - while the spreadsheet shows the different titles (which I copied as ToC from Scrivener’s outline to have the scene names match).
The text inside the chapter remained the same.
By all indications, it’s database bug (SQL?), not a file one.
What version of Scrivener do you have? If you’ve ruled out iCloud involvement, this resembles a now-fixed bug in which Scrivener failed to correctly save the names of newly created files.
To elaborate on the underlying data structure a bit, the .scrivx file inside the .scriv package is a master index used to build the Binder. For each item, it includes the title, a unique identifier, and some other metadata. The unique identifier references a folder in the Files/Data subfolder of the project, which in turn contains a .rtf file with the actual text of your document.
Since the text of the document isn’t changing, it sounds like the title entry in the .scrivx file is being overwritten somehow.
Is there any tool other than Scrivener that might have access to the project? Not just a cloud service, but any cleanup or version control utility? Any form of AI assistance? Are you synching the project with an external folder?
This is something you have to recheck every time you update – at least for the major versions – as the Desktop and Documents feature is ‘helpfully’ turned on every time, even if you are updating, not installing afresh, and even if you had it switched off before the update.
It happened again on Monday night when I updated to macOS 27, so the bug (it can’t be a feature, it’s too stupid idea to do this on purpose, surely?) is still there.
I am using Scrivener v3.5.2 on an M2 MacBook Pro. I only ‘exposed’ the application to Claude for a test proofreading session for a day and then shut down all access. During tonight’s issue, the application was fully isolated - and I don’t make use of the Sync feature.
I only have a background utility (Carbon Copy) that monitors the entire project folder (a few levels above Scriverner’s save location) and monitors file changes to copy them to my Proton Drive. It’s a one-way copy as a backup, not a bi-directional sync - as I create more documents and art for the specific project.
@brookter your take sounds plausible. I have not upgraded to MacOS 27 on this specific MacBook Pro. And I do store the project files on a different location that sources directly from the user directory - which means branches out of the home folder directly (under a custom folder structure).
I shall keep monitoring and see if anything strange pops up again. Meanwhile, I shall keep on utilizing additional backups.