I’ve been having a few sync issues and wonder if anyone could help me to resolve the issue. I’m running Scrivener Version: 1.9.8.0 (12 Jun 2018) on Win 10 and sync between the PC and an IPad via dropbox.
I noticed I had a sync issue where, for some reason, some text files in my manuscript were empty after syncing. When edits were synced back to the PC, the written work in those files were gone. I didn’t lose tonnes of work as I managed to use my zipped backup file, however, I haven’t been able to sync properly since.
I saved the version from the back-up to a totally new filename, but when I synced that, the same topic files were empty.
I checked through with Dropbox, but everything was pointing to the same file.
I’m sure it’s something easy, but I haven’t worked it out yet. I need to get sync up and running this week as I’m traveling for a few weeks and want to continue writing as I move around.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Phlog
Edit … Just to add a little more.
I wiped everything off Dropbox, renamed a backup to a higher version filename, made sure no IOS devices had Scrivener open and then opened the backup and saved it into Dropbox. After closing Scrivener on the PC, I opened the project on my ipad. Again, several of my files within the project were totally empty. I’m afraid to do any editing on my ipad in case the empty file syncs across again and deletes whole chapters of my work.
Is there a way that some files in a project can be stopped from sync-ing? Maybe that’s the issue.
At the moment, though, I have no idea why this is happening and I can’t trust Scrivener to sync across my devices without again losing work.
Just bumping this. I’d be grateful for some sort of response to this from someone at LL, as at the moment I’m trying to find fixes myself and it’s a long process having to re-setup from backups after each failed attempt. If I can’t fix this before I go back on the road on Monday it’s MS Word for me.
I’ve wiped all of my old project versions because this kind of thing was happening:
I wrote and edited chapters on PC. Here’s an example (words blurred out):
Unless I just do nothing but close down Scrivener, that empty file syncs back across and my original work on PC is lost.
This keeps on happening.
I’ve been trying to go over the manual and info on the forum, then troubleshoot step by step. I try something, it doesn’t work , I reset from back-up and try a new tack. However, nothing seems to work.
A little more guidance would be helpful.
Anything from LL? Not trying be snippy and I know they are busy, but my question just seems to be getting lost in all the newer issues being responded to. I also don’t want to have to go back to Word.
If you need a response from the Literature & Latte support team, open a support ticket here: literatureandlatte.com/contact-us
We try to keep an eye on the forums, but they aren’t our ‘official’ support venue.
I would recommend starting with a test project, created on either the iOS device or the PC. That will let you verify that the connection is working correctly without putting your work at risk. If the test project works correctly, but your live project doesn’t, that may indicate that some of the component files of your live project are damaged.
I tested out sync with a new file, while I’m going through the links you posted to stuff I hadn’t already read. Everything synced properly.
In terms of the original project in question, those files have synced fine for months - it’s just a recent thing. If that project is indeed corrupted now, can the corrupted files be fixed, or would it be best for me to start a new project and copy the text across? I’ve read posts here about corrupted files but am not sure if there’s a way to fix them.
Before doing anything, take a backup. (And, incidentally, I would recommend having a backup outside of Dropbox before you start troubleshooting any kind of synchronization error.)
“Empty” files are a sign of a mismatch between the .scrivx file, which is the master index to the project, and the actual contents of the Files/Docs folder. You can use Windows Explorer to browse through the .scriv folder (and subfolders) looking for “Conflict” files, which Dropbox creates when it finds two different versions of the same file. What do you see?
