All this is good to know, Amber (had an old friend named Amy, sorry)—thanks for the detailed explanation. My apologies for not having searched the forum prior to commenting upon Dropbox. The link to other thread, and the correction on Amber’s name was much appreciated, Hugh.
A bit off-topic but thought I’d comment while thinking about it; like so many others, I am totally blown away by the intelligent design and thoughtful execution of the Scrivener software. It’s a joy to see something exceptionally well done.
After I sent my last post, I continued thinking about the reason I lost those files on Dropbox running the project from there, I came to the very same conclusion … autosaving, combined with auto-opening of last opened project. It’s not the continuous network activity that concerned me, but the question of the version to be saved. Thinking it through, what happened must have been something like:
1 I did some work on one of the two computers — say MBP — and saved it, so that new version was written to Dropbox … fine;
2 somewhile later, while in an environment with no network, fired up Scrivener on MBA and it opened the project which had been open when it was last shut down, the same project;
3 before doing anything was distracted by something/went to the loo/poured a drink/whatever (sometimes, when what passes for my mind is pretending to be able to multi-task, I find I click Scrivener in the dock, when I mean to click Tables … square icons close together which must be changed … the togetherness, not the icons!) … period of inactivity on Scrivener so it automatically saved the (old) version of the file with new date and time, so it is more recent than the one on the Dropbox site …;
4 realised that I had opened the wrong app, or perhaps that I was looking at a version of the project which didn’t have the new data in it;
5 later moved with MBA to a networked environment … Dropbox synched the now new version in the folder on MBA, effectively removing the work that had been done on MBP from the version on the website.
6 later on back on MBP, started Scrivener, it re-opened the last open project and pulled in the version that had been saved from MBA;
6 Bang! All the work that had been done previously on MBP no longer existed.
The combination of short auto-save times and automatic re-opening of projects on two Dropbox-synced computers plus sometimes working in a non-networked environment is a recipe for losing stuff, so I will have to change my modus operandi. Pity, 'cos doing the synching while I was working and having the MBP and MBA always updated without having to do anything about it felt really good.
Experience with this type of realtime, shared write sync tells me this:
Sync interval needs to increase proportionally to the total amount of data being synced.
Writes to synced file systems should be controlled via shared file locking methods.
When file locking is not available token passing must be used.
From what I know of drop box is is great for non-shared writes. Based on a lack of locking model or token passing this type of sync system really isn’t up to the task of shared file writes.
That said, even Apple can’t get it right on a local machine (time machine). It might me unreasonable to ask Dropbox to do this.
Yes, I agree in principle, Jaysen, but I would say this. This is not a situation where more than one person may be accessing the file, or even one person accessing it concurrently on two different machines, just me at different times on one or other of my two computers. Thinking about it further, it seems to me that the problem lies in just opening the .scriv in a non-networked environment, even without actually doing anything on it but having it open beyond the autosave time, is the problem. If you do that, the the version on that computer will not have the latest changes from the other, and it will be marked as more recent than the one on the Dropbox server and so that will be uploaded the next time that computer is online, and the edits done on the other will be lost. I don’t think I have ever had any problem when working on the MBA when it is networked — the MBP is now virtually permanently on my desk in my flat and therefore always on line through my airport network when running.
The MBA is not always on line because for most of the university network, you have to be running Windows as you have to run a small validation .exe to have access. I am not going to lash out money on Parallels or VM-ware, take up valuable hard-disk space for an installation of Windows, and court viral infection — the university network is riddled with them — on my MBA just to be able to run a tiny .exe in order to get on the network! I did try connecting through an app, whose name I forget, that lets you run software like I.E. 6 without the need for Windows — it did that fine — but I still couldn’t get through to the administration page to enter my students’ scores, and in the 5 minutes I was on line, my TiBook had picked up two viruses!
This means I do have to use the MBA, and sometimes run Scrivener, when I’m not logged in to Dropbox, so unless I exercise extreme care, that overwriting with an old version of the project is a real risk. I guess saving to a folder on the hard disk of the MBA and the MBP and using “Back-up to …” to keep the files up to date through Dropbox is going to be the answer, though it is extra steps.
Here I am, fuzzy minded on the subject of saving, backing up and about anything not alphabetically straightforward on the computer, but doesn’t Dropbox hold previously saved copies? Mark, could you have got back your work by restoring the one but last backup on the Dropbox webpage? Not that I know how to restore a Scriv project. It comes in lots of little files - how or which of them do you resore? See, I depend on Dropbox (almost) but if I had a disaster, I wouldn’t know how to retrieve what it has saved for me.
Jenny
I think the problem Mark has is that the LOCAL copy was changed, and dropbox sync’d it from the cloud overwriting the local copy. The flow would look like:
Jenny, I too have never had to restore a Scrivener project from Dropbox (I’m pleased to say). So your post prompted me to do so. Here’s how: I clicked on the Dropbox icon in the menu bar, clicked the Open My Dropbox command, found the named and zipped Scrivener package inside, dragged a copy of it on to my desktop, double-clicked on it and it unzipped, dragged out the unzipped project, double-clicked on it - and the project opened. I didn’t have to bother with the little files.
Jaysen: except I’m sure it says something about keeping old syncs in the cloud on the web site.
Hugh: Excellent. I haven’t done it because I was too frightened it wouldn’t work. Now I’m totally relaxed about it. Also, I Backup to a USB disc AND copy to a second folder in the finder. Because I’m a nervous sort of person.
You wasn`t that nervous when you were inciting a mutiny onboard that steamer in the middle of he South Atlantic, en route for the island of St Helena guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/j … n?page=all Pull the other one
Hapy New Year
Vic
** this will happen merely by having Scrivener open with no activity for long enough for it to autosave.
Update 2 has been eliminated. As I said, the text in all those files — about a dozen very short ones — I have in other formats/locations, so it was not disastrous, but I can see that it could be.
I tried leaving a Scrivener document in the Dropbox folder. It got corrupted when I travelled somewhere and tried to access it on my Air. I think the advice above about using Dropbox for specific saved backups is excellent. I won’t risk leaving a ‘live’ file in there again.
To be honest syncing can drive you nuts. It sounds as if it should be easy but it often isn’t. And when it goes wrong you can lose lots. Just saving a manual copy into Dropbox isn’t hard work and does at least leave you in control. OS X Sync Services are often a disaster; I have lots loads of info, or got loads of duplicated info, in Entourage, Together and a variety of other things. I won’t use sync any more except for Address Book and iCal.
Thats just what I was thinking, but, I suspect Im too much of a gentleman to actually articulate the sentiment in open forum. I wish I wasn`t such a wimp.
Take care
Vic
PS: tons of Luck with, ‘Apology for the Woman Writing’.
Too late for luck now - the thing’s written and gone. The rest is marketing and nothing to do with me. But thanks for the thought. I can’t think why Jaysen doesn’t appreciate you more…[one of those faces that looks unconvincingly innocent, but which I refuse to use]
I do appreciate the deviant one. Whom else is there to show that I have not come completely apart at the seems? That I still have some vestiges of sanity? That my vagaries and wanderings of thought are not yet beyond redemption?
I now want to travel to St Helena BTW. Snort curses you gently for that. Lovely article. Quite depressing to think that by the time I could actually make the trip it probably won’t be worth going. My idea of a vacation that is worth taking involves time spent getting there, being able to forget that the “outside” world exists, and seeing things that make the world seem good and worth fighting to stay in. Lovely article.
Very hard trip to come by, that. I keep trying for it, and have just come back from what turned out to be some Northern Lights chasing nonsense (with a bit of very good staring at fjords). I’m increasingly convinced staying home and daydreaming is the way to go.
J
I prefer to daydream in places that are not full of nightmares. That and places where the cell doesn’t work. I have the “privilege” of managing a 24x7x365 organization which means that the folks we service don’t remember that we get vacations too. I received a call at my grandmothers funeral once (forgot to turn the phone off) and was “reprimanded” for refusing to help the idiot.
My ideal trip involves a wind powered vessel of 45+ ft, a crew of 3-5, unlimited time and visas to Ireland, England, France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Morocco, India, Vietnam, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Chili, Peru, Brazil, Panama, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, and Bahama. Not in this particular order, and not an exclusive list. I would like the freedom to stop where ever I wanted. Between Jack London, Jules Verne, and Millville I have this seafaring fantasy that I indulge in every time I start dreaming up a “great vacation”.
That and a couple of months in China. Snort and I have been trying to get that one planned for a few years now. Someday …
This can be quite a nightmare actually (I have, regrettably, experience in this). Combine the fact that Scrivener projects are tons of little files with the fact that Scrivener is updating them rapidly and DropBox is posting them all as individual versions. I had Projects (when I was still working live) where the vast majority of the hundreds of items in the project have thousands of versions each, all posted within seconds of one another. I have successfully recovered broken projects before by going through and reverting individual files, but it is not easy. You have to pick a common time and then go through and make sure everything with change-logs running through the common time are reset to match each other internally.
Good news is that DropBox has plans to improve the way they handle bundles in the future. There will be a “snapshot” type system where you can tell DropBox to go back to a certain point in time and it will reset all of the component files internally to match that time. This will be much more useful than the current system.
But that doesn’t change the rest of this conversation. Even if we can roll back packages to a specific point in time I still highly recommend using DropBox to store zipped backups only. I would also recommending keeping that parenthetical ‘almost’ high on the list. I consider all cloud-technology to be a convenience, not something to rely upon.
Pull the other one 
I consider all cloud-technology to be a convenience, not something to rely upon.