I’ve been working with Scrivener on two different comps and overwriting the file back and forth as needed. When I first open the newly copied file, the “Synchronizing search strings” progress bar comes up for 7 to 11 minutes (depending on which computer it is). I suspect this is because of the large pdf file that is in the Research folder (thank you, Google Books!). I was wondering if there’s a way to replace just the draft or manuscript instead of the whole .scriv file or to suppress the ‘synchronizing’ function. Or am I better off moving that book-length pdf out of my scriv file?
“Synchronising search strings” comes up when Scrivener thinks that the project hasn’t been closed properly. The way it detects this is that when the project is opened, it writes a message to an internal project file telling it that the project is open. When the project is closed, this information is updated accordingly. If the project is opened and the information says that it is open - i.e. that it was not closed - then it will synchronise the search strings.
Thus, it sounds as though you are doing one of the following:
- Having Scrivener close improperly somehow (e.g. Force Quit).
- Copying the .scriv file whilst the project is still open.
I’m guessing it is the latter. If so, all you need to do is close the project before copying it.
Hope that helps.
All the best,
Keith
Actually, there is another occasion.
- Save as Backup, with Zip checked
- Backup to server
- Download to different machine
- Unzip
- Open project
- Synchronising Search Strings occurs
Not that I mind - I assume this is intended behaviour, to make sure there’s nothing dodgy in the project - but this happens to me every time I download my backup version to a different computer than the one it was saved from. I suspect this is what’s happening to Grumbleboy.
Thanks to both of you for the quick responses.
Hmm. I was pretty sure I had exited both versions of Scrivener before I copied the files, so I tried it again (I haven’t used the “Save as Backup” feature). When I tried to copy the new file from the laptop to the desktop (“replacing” the old file) it warned me that the file “123.rtf” (which is not one of my files–I assume it’s part of the program) was still in use and it couldn’t complete the operation. So I went to the desktop, double-clicked on the “old” file and got a warning that the file doesn’t exist.
I went back upstairs to the laptop (yes, instead of bringing the laptop into my office, I’ve been running up and down the stairs like an idiot to perform this operation), repeated the operation and it worked fine, without the “Synchronizing . . .” hold up.
I don’t know, maybe there was a little glitch in my network, but all seems to be fine now. Thanks again for the quick responses.
Ah - Antony that’s a good point. I missed that. The backup doesn’t set the flag to closed, and save the search strings at that point, too (a straight save of open search strings is MUCH quicker than a complete re-sync, which is what happens when Scriv thinks they haven’t been saved properly). I’ll fix this in 1.12.
Best,
Keith
Oh, fair enough. Bonus! 