I can’t do it! I keep getting “synchronization problem” in the Ipad. I closed 3 on my Imac just to make sure there were no probs. Also, when I reopened the project I was working in, a message appeared on Scrivener 3 saying that I should save the backup in another directory. I did, but it seems I am working with the backup, so maybe that’s the prob? Should I just save the project in the original directory?
Cheers
The project needs to be in whatever directory you’ve designated on the iPad in order for the iPad to find it. By default, that will be Dropbox/Apps/Scrivener.
If synchronization used to work correctly and suddenly quit, try unlinking and relinking the iPad from Dropbox. Tap the Edit button on the iPad’s project screen, then the gear icon down at the bottom. The recent updates to iOS and the Dropbox software have caused confusion in a number of cases.
There’s a troubleshooting guide for iOS synchronization here:
scrivener.tenderapp.com/help/kb … os-syncing
And a thorough setup guide here:
scrivener.tenderapp.com/help/kb … g-with-ios
Katherine
Thanks a bunch! Will try it now.
I followed all of the steps and it did not work.
Nothing changed except my upgrade to Scriv 3. All backups still point to the correct Dropbox/apps/scrivener folder on both the Mac and IOS iPad.
When that was not working by default, I did the steps of unlinking and relinking dropbox. For some reason, it found 6,500 files to synch but none were those created in Scrivener 3.
Any ideas?
Backups should not be pointed to the sync folder. They should be pointed somewhere else completely. Preferably not even on Dropbox, because if your Dropbox account becomes corrupted, all your Scrivener projects and your backups will be corrupted.
In the sync folder you should only have the Scrivener projects you are actively working on and need to have available on the iPad.
What “did not work?”
You want the live projects, not the backups, to be in the folder synced with iOS. Not only do you not want iOS Scrivener to be editing your backup files, but it can’t read ZIPped files anyway.
Did you review the troubleshooting guide linked earlier in the thread?
Katherine
I know where to set the Dropbox Sync folder in iOS (Dropbox Settings). But where do I set that in the Mac version of Scrivener? (I have my Backup folder set in the Backup settings for Scrivener on my Mac, but I am not able to find where I set my sync folder for Dropbox on my Mac version of Scrivener.) Thanks in advance!
On the Mac, you don’t “set a sync folder.”
- If you haven’t already, install the Dropbox app onto your Mac and let it put all the files in your Dropbox into your Dropbox folder on your Mac.
- Quit Scrivener
- MOVE YOUR PROJECT to the folder inside your Mac Dropbox folder that you’ve told iOS Scrivener to sync to
- double click the moved project to start it in Scrivener again.
Got it … in iOS, I explicitly define a sync folder. In OSX, I implicitly define the Dropbox sync folder based on the action you described. Thank you.
You’re welcome!
Can I say how annoyed I am to find out that this is the solution? I have a MacBook with limited storage space, so while I have 100+ GB’s of stuff stored in my Dropbox, I don’t have the app installed because I can’t fit it- even if you use selective sync, you still end up with whatever files you have sitting in the root of your DB showing up, and there is always stuff sitting in the root of my DB.
Either way, this seems like a really sloppy way for such a distinguished program to sync; I’m a developer myself and I know that Dropbox api integration could’ve easily been incorporated into the Mac version of the app, just as it is on the mobile version.
Deleted double
Nothing sloppy in the implimentation at all. This is exactly how all the programs I synch across multiple devices with Dropbox (and for that matter iCloud) work. You have the project on all your devices so you can work offline and then synch as soon as connected again. The only way to work on most aircraft for instance.
The way it’s done on MacOS and Windows, it’s up to the user to supply the sync engine of their choice – no additional work needs to be done in Scrivener. (Some sync engines work better than others with Scrivener document packages, of course…) When the sync engine updates, no corresponding code has to updated in Scrivener. It gives the user the most flexibility in how they arrange their filesystems.
The only reason the mobile version doesn’t work exactly like this is that iOS sandboxes applications and doesn’t let them access each others’ files. Sure, you can load the DropBox client on iOS (and you need to for the code to be there for Scrivener) but anything it syncs down, Scrivener can’t touch (and the sync client isn’t running in the background, so you have to explicitly sync projects). This is a major source of complaints and confusion for people!
Also, because the Scrivener file format is a MacOS file package (basically a folder with lots of sub-folders and files), it’s apparently a bit more complicated to code directly against a sync engine API and keep the file robust and healthy.
Just out of curiosity, how do you access your 100+ Gb of data on the Dropbox server if you don’t do it with your MacBook?
Have you considered moving all of those files out of the root of your DB folder, so that you can actually make good use of selective sync? It’s as simple as creating a “Misc Docs” folder and moving all the loose files into it that don’t belong elsewhere.
Hello,
Does this mean that whatever your current writing project is, let’s say Stories.scriv, it’s always located in Dropbox while you’re working on it? Or in other words, if you cmd+click on the title of your Project, it will show the location of your project as Dropbox?
Dropbox is just a folder on your Mac’s hard drive. A folder that the Dropbox app created when you installed it, and which the app monitors all the time. As soon as a file is changed in this folder, the app uploads a copy of that file to the Dropbox server.
When you start or wake up the Mac, the Db app checks if there are updated files on the Db server that are more recent than the versions on your Mac’s Db folder. If there is, those files are downloaded from the Db server to your Mac.
A Scrivener project is a package, i.e a folder looking like a file in Finder. Every document in the Binder is a file within the project package/folder. If the project is located in the Db folder, the Db app makes sure that every time a single document in the Binder is edited, a copy of that document-file is uploaded to the Db server.