Text disappears after file format updated

[madtatter]

I tried to open a project I last updated middle 2015 and received the following message:

The project you are trying to load uses an older file format and cannot be opened. Would you like to update? A copy of the old project will be saved in the same directory.

Fine, I let it update and it opened the project. All the folders are there, the text pages are there and labeled, but there isn’t any text on any page in the project. I keep older versions of Scriv files, so I made a copy of one and tried again with the same results. I tried other files with different text, same. I did find one that retained some of the text files, but I still lost ten chapters. I went through the folders to see if I could access the copy it backed up, but it gives the same error if I try to open it.

First: can I get the text back?
Second: how do I prevent this from happening on other files? I sometimes start writing something, then set it aside for a month or two. Or I finish a manuscript, then shelf it for several months before coming back to revise it.

[dougal217]

This has happened to me also. Until I saw your post, I had been blaming it on something else, but now I’m wondering, like you, if this is related to the update

[madtatter]

I received a reply from tech support a couple of days ago (for others in this situation) and here’s what they said:

I’m sorry to hear about the trouble. This failure in the conversion most often happens if the project has more than one binder file in it (the file with the yellow Scrivener icon). Scrivener creates a backup copy of the project before converting specifically to give us a way to troubleshoot this when it occurs. As such, it is safe to run the conversion on any additional projects (attempting the conversion is the only way to know whether or not it will work), but my advice is to make copies of all of your projects in a new location on your hard drive and attempt to open the copies rather than the originals. That way you know that the originals have never been touched and you can return to them to make new copies for additional troubleshooting. You don’t have to depend on the converter itself to make a backup copy, because you already have one.

For those rare occasions where the conversion fails, we just have to troubleshoot it (starting with a pre-converted copy).

If you are willing to send me a pre-conversion copy of the project in question, I can investigate and probably solve the problem pretty quickly. However, without seeing the project, I can only guess what is causing it in your case and try to walk you through solving it.

The first thing to do is to check to see if the project has multiple binder files. If it does, my advice is to make multiple copies of the project (one for each binder file). In each copy, delete all but one binder file (a different binder file in each copy). Then try double-clicking that binder file. Let it convert, then examine the results. Repeat this for each binder file to see if any of them come out properly.

That’s the first thing I would try if the project was in front of me. The second thing I would try would be to try converting the project with the Mac version of the application (obviously not an option if you don’t have easy access to a Mac). The Mac version has its own implementation of the conversion, so it might produce different results (it isn’t suppose to, but sometimes it does).

This conversion is only intended to be a one-time thing. The format had to be changed now for compatibility with a product that is coming out in a few months, but we don’t plan on changing it again in the foreseeable future.

I checked for double binder files and that isn’t the problem. However, I keep backup copies on a USB of all my writing, and I had another copy of the same files. I copied the files from my USB to my PC and tried it, and I was able to keep all my text. FYI, I immediately compiled and saved the sucker, just in case. So I didn’t bother to send him the file because I figured it might be a problem with the copying and transferring the originals to Dropbox, although I’d never had problems in the past.

If nothing else, this reminded me that no system is infallible, and make regular copies. I did that by making periodic copies of the scriv file, but in the future I’ll also compile it and keep progress copies that way.