I’m currently using Scrivener 2 (3.5.2) on a MacBook Pro 2017 (Ventura 13.7.8).
When I start up Scrivener, it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours to actually open. It’s been getting progressively worse over the last year or so. When the issue first started, it took a few minutes to start, now it can take several hours. Once the program is actually open, I have no issue opening and closing individual project files. It was manageable for a while, but now I have gotten so frustrated that I’m considering using a different platform, which I really don’t want to do because I’ve been using Scrivener for over 10 years and it’s a great program.
I’ve tried the following with no improvement:
Uninstall and reinstall Scrivener 2
Open original Scrivener 1
Install latest version from the website
Open different projects with varying file sizes (the largest is 70 MB, the smallest is 500 KB).
Disconnect external HD Time Machine
Turn off all iCloud syncing (I’ve never used it)
Create new project with basic template and no content, quit Scrivener, then open this project
Split larger projects into smaller files
Manually copy over text from old project to new project file
Remove all backup files
Open projects from different folders, including Desktop
Open Scrivener to launcher only
Force quit and reopen
Open Scrivener with no other programs open
Set Scrivener to open upon Mac start up
Outside of getting a new MacBook, I’m not sure what else to try.
I hate to be the bearer of (possibly) bad news, but this happened to me several years ago.
I finally took the Mac in to the Apple Store and I got the bad news. My hard drive was failing. MacOS helpfully kept moving sections of my project to undamaged areas of the disk, but eventually the project was so scattered and undamaged disk areas so rare that I couldn’t load the project. I had to get a new hard drive…
Yes, that wouldn’t be entirely surprising. It is 9 years old and more than half the HD space is taken up by “system data.” I’ve been due for a new computer anyway, so this may just be time.
Yikes, 150GB+ as System data…. Yeah, your system drive is nearing EoL. You need to make sure you have a good TimeMachine backup. You may want to consider replacing the system drive if that is an option for your unit.
One thing that may – short term – help would be to make a full TimeMachine backup then from the recovery console format and reinstall MacOS then restore your fresh backup. This has the effect of re-testing marked bad sectors on your drive and even if they still fail, the data should restore into better clusters around the drive.
Having a recent TimeMachine backup will be of value if you decide to replace the Mac too as you can use it with Migration Assistant to restore your stuff to your new machine.