I have been having an issue with my wordcount from the search bar dropping overnight/upon opening. (I close the program every night when I’m finished.)
I have my project set to sync with an external DropBox folder and the first time I noticed the issue was after I synced in changed that were made to the files outside of the Scrivener application. The total wordcount in the target bar had dropped by about 2k words. When I get the wordcount from the project statistics function, it’s correct (about 2k higher).
I double checked that all of the files marked to compile are correct and none are missing, so I don’t think that’s the issue.
Last night it happened again. I closed the program with 170,200 words and opened this morning to 169,019. When I use the project statistics function to get the word count, it’s 170,200. It doesn’t look like any content is actually missing, just that the word count drops in the search bar.
I am not sure exactly what you have that’s going on, but here are a few things that may have an incidence on the reported word count, depending on the settings for your statistics:
Include/exclude from compile.
The compile range of documents.
The filter in the compiler.
Whether a document is inside the draft/manuscript folder or not.
Could whatever you do outside of Scrivener change the status of a document ? I doubt it. But perhaps. (?)
One thing I don’t understand, though, is that you seem to imply that it happens repeatedly.
If so, how do you get the word count back up ?
If your overall wordcount goes down each day, are the drops not cumulative ? – Wouldn’t you now be short of 4k, 5k, 6k words ?
How many computers do you run ?
If the answer is “one”, you are misusing the sync.
No need for Dropbox. (Which might be your culprit, here. Perhaps some files are only on the cloud. Not available offline. You’ll see them in the binder, but the editor will/would show blank.)
The drop in word count has only happened twice. The first time after syncing changes made to the file on a nother device and the second just overnight. After the first drop in words the word count climbed normally as I wrote for the next 5k words or so. Then dropped overnight after closing/reopening the file.
When I edit the drop box file it is on another device.
I will triple check my compile filters to see if I’ve missed something.
They do not drift apart that I’ve noticed. The word count that I get from the project statistics function has stayed correct/accurate. It’s only the word count in the search bar that has dropped.
No, not the session count, the project word count above that
What I think you really should do is go through your documents one by one to see if Dropbox didn’t snatch one off of your HD.
Is your project within Dropbox’s reach?
If so, make sure your files are set to be available offline.
I have exactly this happening! Just made my own post about it before I noticed this one.
Always around 1500 words, randomly changes my wordcount day to day, some days it’s up to the full and proper number, some days it drops between 1000 and 2000. I’ve noticed this drop also happens in Writing History, so some days I randomly get -1500 words for the day (when I know I didn’t remove any words), and then usually the following day I’ll get +1500 (even though I know I didn’t write anything that day).
My theory at the moment is that when it randomly happens that Dropbox is accessing a file to sync it, and Scrivener is right at that second going over all the files to count the words, there is an access clash and Scrivener gives up on counting that file’s words.
One response here has been that if you’re syncing to Dropbox while using only one computer, then you’re using sync wrong. Is that really the answer? Isn’t it pretty standard to use Dropbox merely as a backup to the cloud to ensure that if something were to happen to your computer you have a copy safe in your Dropbox?
Okay, certainly, but suppose I do want to keep writing on the project on my iPad (haven’t done this in a couple of years, but I might get back to doing that again) – would this somehow avoid this problem?
We have not established that Dropbox has anything to do with the problem, so there’s no way to know if eliminating Dropbox would fix it. Unless you test it, of course.
