Sorry, I’m writing this with shaky hands. I may be hard to understand.
I tried to upgrade to the latest version of Scrivener and I got a message about Administrative Rights needed. After trying to change my account settings, I just decided to install the upgrade from here. So I installed into the same directory and now ALL my folders with my scvx (sorry I can’t remember the extension for the project files) are gone. Every one.
I never got a message / warning about overwriting.
Is there a way to get my work back?
I have old old backups but I was going to back up but you know how that goes.
So I upgraded and it removed all my files. What can I do?
Sorry, if I’m speaking very basic. I’m just dealing with heart pounding here.
Edit: Update. I’m using a data recovery program and most of my stuff is back. Some of the files are corrupted but geez… why did it erase my projects?
Yes, off to upload all this to offline sites, secondary drives, etc.
An application program upgrade or install itself deleting application data (in this case project folders (names ending in .scriv) and their contents) is extremely unlikely, even if they were located down inside the application program folder itself (not the default location normally used by Scrivener and other apps and not a good idea). Upgrades and installers just aren’t designed to do that and for them to do such accidentally or unintentionally isn’t easy or likely. Somewhat more likely, it might have resulted in Scrivener no longer remembering their location in File > Recent Projects. No point in debating, though.
Probably best to:
Directly contact tech support as discussed above.
Review use of backups (discussed in 6.11 Backing Up Your Work in the Scrivener manual)
Employ DropBox (compatible with Scrivener and free up to 2GB?) for off-machine/off-site backup (discussed in scrivener.tenderapp.com/help/kb … c-services ) as one of your backup strategies.
Where did you save your projects to? Typically, people keep their projects in the Documents folder of their Windows computer, but you can save them in any folder of your hard drive. If for some reason you put your project inside the Scrivener installation folder (probably C:\Program Files\Scrivener), that might explain why your projects went missing–the update might erase the Scrivener installation folder and then create a new one. That folder is not meant for documents.
I did save them to the Scrivener folder within Program Files.
It was a weird thing. I used to save my files to a Dropbox (the result and ‘humor’ of what happened is well with me).
What happen is I have two different users. Depending on what I’m doing, I may use one of two users. Well that results in files not syncing correctly. I got different files, files that were missing changes so I just said ‘F’ it and decided to save away from the Dropbox.
So I just saved within the Scrivener folder and this is the result.
Some of the projects are recoverable. All of my stories are up in compiled form. These were the raw project files. So what I lose is:
A bit of piece of mind since I’m not sure if there’s something in the file that could cause it to render poorly. A few don’t open a some open with garbage text and others give a error about something missing on line one but they open.
So I may just have to recreate projects as needed. i.e. Download the mobi file, convert, import, etc.
Basically I used a data recovery tool BUT… some of the files aren’t recoverable because when Scrivener did the update, it used sectors used for project files. Hence files that are say 90 percent complete but still worrisome to work with.
Waiting to see what L&L says but I honestly expect this is the end of it. Just posting so someone learns from me. Don’t save your files in the Scriverner directory and back-up.
By default, Scrivener creates backup copies of your projects when closing them. Take a look at the Scrivener menu Tools->Options and then go to the Backup section to see where it stores them, and see if there are any useful copies there. You might have to restore older backup copies if you’ve opened and closed projects since you started your restore of the originals, as it only keeps 5 backup copies of each project by default.
If you have multiple user accounts on Windows, and want to share files between them, consider the “public” version of Documents, which can be found on your C: drive under C:\Users\Public\Public Documents. At least, I assume they’re there for most versions of Windows (I only have a corporate PC to judge by, since I don’t have any Windows computers at home). Files there should be readable and writable by multiple user accounts on the same computer.
My only concern (this is because I am paranoid) is that they may not have the changes made but I presume they should.
Side note: I am bad with editing and sometimes I notice a error and I’ll fix it but I should think that fix would show. Okay, I can just open both projects and compare the word count and then save the backup as a new version (just to make sure there’s no missing files).
Now off to the beach. I’ll backup with I return. What’s the worse that can happen?
KIDDING!
Thank you. I think I have my files back.
Holey heck… what a issue.
Backing up NOW. To a offline site and to a secondary harddrive. Goofus learned her lesson. Thank you.
The Public folders may have non-standard permissions that interfere with DropBox or other sync services.
Also, sync services typically run as one specific user, so unless that user is logged in (and possibly the active user), synching doesn’t occur. This makes them problematic for use with Public folders.
My advice re: the Public folders was in response to the OP stating:
I interpreted that to mean that Dropbox wasn’t being used, but they needed a central location where multiple user accounts could directly read and write to.
I’m not endorsing the use of the Public folders, mind you; I have never used that feature of Windows, and don’t know if Windows would muck with the files of the project in a way that Scrivener might object to. Test with a throw-away project, and do some googling about Public Documents before making it a part of your file sharing strategy!
Reading this thread makes me think that somewhere in the introductory material for Scrivener, there should be a ‘Read-me’ which warns users not to save their project to the same directory as Scrivener itself. I don’t think the problem is as great on the Mac because of the use of “packages”, so even if you did manage to put a project in the Applications folder, upgrading Scrivener would not touch it. But clearly, there is a danger on Windows in putting your project in the Scrivener directory.
One of the later commenters was talking about mixing both methods. I just wanted to make sure no one walked into that big box canyon on the day the flash flood came…
