Long time Scrivener user on Mac, the recent 3.5.1 release introduced a terrible lag when right clicking on a word to open the context menu. On average it takes 10 seconds with the mac spinner showing.
Note, no other editors on the same Mac are impacted. Word, Pages, etc. all show context menu immediately.
What Mac? Intel or Silicon?
On my M2Pro Mac Mini, the first one took ā¤ 2 secs; next, in same binder document, instantaneous; third, after scrolling to different binder document, ā¤ 1 sec.
Mark
PS Neither Word (which doesnāt use any Apple frameworks) nor Pages (which uses proprietary frameworks not accessible to developers) is a good comparison for performance. 
PPS: Mac Mini is on 15.7.2ā¦ not yet moved to 26.x.
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Just to confirm Markās result, I cannot reproduce the problem - right click brings up the option menu instantly (Scrivener 3.5.1 on Intel Imac 2019).
Ray
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I can replicate this on my machine running Scrivener 3.5.1. Context menus take around 1 second to display, rather than being instant. Thereās no visual animation running that I can see, but a clear pause before the context menu is drawn. This issue is not present in any other UI elements/apps that Iāve come across.
MacBook Pro M1 Max (32Gb), macOS 26.1.0.
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Can someone please test if TextEdit has the same issue (switch to Format > Wrap to Page for the most comparable results in TextEdit).
I canāt reproduce this. Contextual menus are instant on my Mac Studio and MacBook Air. I did see the spinning beachball for a couple of seconds when opening a contextual menu on my MBA for the first time, but after that it was instant each time.
Nothing has changed with regards to contextual menus in Scrivener 3.5.1. Nothing at all has been touched that would affect this, in fact, so this is odd.
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I can expand on this slightly. I just did some experimentation.
If I right click text that is already selected, the context menu appears immediately.
If I right click when nothing is selected, the delay happens (but I notice Scrivener highlights the word I right-clicked). Something weird happening in selection logic causing the delayā¦?
This issue does not appear in TextEdit.
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Iām still unable to reproduce it on either machine. And there is no selection logic in this in Scrivener - TextKit automatically selects when you Right-click.
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Instantaneous on TextEdit for me using the text from one of the documents I tried in Scrivener.
I too saw the beachball on the first time in Scrivener, and momentarily on the third.
And to add to @Shellās comment, I had only tried with words selected; trying without pre-selection in Scrivener, I get the ā¤ 1 second delay and the word subsequently selected (which is what I would expect).
Mark
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Hmmm. I can now reliably affect how long the delay takes:
- It only appears to be affecting scrivenings.
- If I have a large chapter (or entire ms) open as a scrivening, right-clicking without a selection appears to take a long time.
- The smaller the scrivening, the less time before the context menu appears.
- If there is a selection in the scrivening and I right-click on that, there is no delay.
Itās still instant for me even on my MacBook Air. Presumably there is some other factor involved that weāre missing.
P.S. Could you please try downloading 3.4 from here and seeing if that shows the same result?
Iām wondering if it is macOS 26.2 specific (although I am on macOS 26.1 myself).
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Tried 3.4 as requested (Iām on 26.1 btw). Iām seeing the issue there too, so Iām starting to think this is a macOS thing.
Iāve switched back to 3.5.1 now andā¦ āinterestinglyā, clicking on my manuscript folder, itās now taking between 1-2 seconds to open context menus and Iām briefly seeing the beachball. macOS is gaslighting me (us?).
(I also disabled Grammarly in case that was a factor).
Going to restart my Mac, see if that makes any difference.
RIghtā¦ I restarted (rare day that I donāt have all my dev tools open!). Beachball no longer appears when I right click, and the delay is back down to 1 second (rather than ~2 + beachball). It should still be instant, though. Weird stuff.
Keith, Iām on 15.7.2 on my MacMini, where Iāve been checking. Iāll go and get my M1 MBA, which has 26.1 and try with that.
I also tried copying my entire MS into TextEdit with Wrap to Page enabled in case it was a text length thing, but no dice. TextEdit context menus remains snappy even with 120,000 words
Thanks. Okay, this is all very odd. One thing I note is that I have Apple Intelligence turned off. Iām downloading that now in System Settings - does turning that off make any difference?
M1 MBA running 26.1:
Scrivenings session: 1st try Ā±3 secs; 2nd try same document ā¤1 sec; 3rd try after scrolling to new document, Ā±3 secs.
Single document session: instantaneous.
Although worse than the Mac Mini, itās nowhere near the 10 secs the OP said he suffered.
Mark
I donāt have Apple Intelligence turned on in any of my machines.
Mark
I tried disabling Apple Intelligence, and it doesnāt make a difference.
Another observation:
It very much depend where I right click. If I right click directly between words, then Scrivener selects the empty space and the context menu appears immediately.
Please try this build:
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/downloads/beta/Scriv351ContextualMenuTest.zip
This build doesnāt change anything, but it does log what is going on. Please run it, right-click so that you get the delay, and then in Finder go to:
~/Library/Application Support/Scrivener
(You need to hold down Option in the Finder āGoā menu to see āLibraryā.)
In that folder, open the file called ācontextual-menu-log.txtā and please post the results here. That file will be replaced each time you open the contextual menu in the text view.
This just logs how long it takes for each component of the contextual menu to be built. Iām hoping it will tell us where the delay is coming from.
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