Scrivener iOS syncing via Dropbox continues to crash the app

[Thomas Rabenstein]

After a long wait, during which nothing happens and the synchronization gets stuck at the "Download file information" step, the Scrivener App disappears from the screen and the process is aborted. The app still appears in the process list, but the process is aborted or, rather, it has not been started at all. The abort occurs before the actual synchronization starts.

Greetings,
Thomas

[throthberghofer]

After a long wait, during which nothing happens and the synchronization gets stuck at the "Download file information" step, the Scrivener App disappears from the screen and the process is aborted.

Just a thank you for taking the time going through all the troubles. This is very much appreciated.

Thomas

[lunk]

A detail: although sync generally works for me, the process sometimes hangs and nothing seems to happen. When this happens I always tap Cancel and restart the process, and this is usually enough to get it going again.
It seems there are actually two different issues that occur. Immediate crash when sync is tapped or a long delay waiting for some process, whereafter it crashes.

[Thomas Rabenstein]

Just a thank you for taking the time going through all the troubles. This is very much appreciated.
Thomas

Hi Thomas,
The factory reset was actually the only procedure I had not yet tried. Of course, the driving force was the hope that it would work again afterwards, but unfortunately it didn't work. The problem remains.
Greetings,
Thomas

[Thomas Rabenstein]

A detail: although sync generally works for me, the process sometimes hangs and nothing seems to happen. When this happens I always tap Cancel and restart the process, and this is usually enough to get it going again.
It seems there are actually two different issues that occur. Immediate crash when sync is tapped or a long delay waiting for some process, whereafter it crashes.

No, unfortunately, that is not the case here. The process always breaks off, the first time it takes longer, the following attempts are faster. It is the same effect as before the factory reset. And once again emphasized, the synchronization worked before (under iOs 12) without any problems and reliably, no matter how many project files were in the sync folder or how large the files were.
Greetings,
Thomas

[lunk]

Have you tried tapping Cancel to stop and restart, or does the crash happen so fast that you don’t have time to do that?

[gyokusai]

[Edited for clarification (projects)]

Not sure this helps but anyway. I found a work-around to sync between my Mac and my iPad:

1. On Mac or iPad, I close the Scrivener project after working on it.
2. Sync on iPad invariably crashes during “file list” retrieval.
3. On Mac, I remove a random Scrivener project from the Dropbox sync folder.
4. On iPad, sync works fine now.
5. On Mac, I put the removed Scrivener project back & wait until it’s Dropbox-synced.
6. On iPad, sync again works fine. All projects are now synced.

I tried removing different Scrivener projects from the Dropbox sync folder—big ones, smaller ones, very small ones. Doesn’t make any difference. Sync always works after removing and putting back a project, respectively, no matter which.

But as soon as I work on any Scrivener project on my Mac or iPad, sync breaks down again and I have to repeat the above prodecure.

Cheers,
J.

----------------------
iMac Retina 5K 27-inch (Late 2015) | macOS 10.14.6
iPad Pro 12.9" 3rd Gen | iPadOS 13.3

[drmajorbob]

Not sure this helps but anyway. I found a work-around to sync between my Mac and my iPad:

...
3. On Mac, I remove a random Scrivener doc from the Dropbox sync folder.
...

I tried removing different Scrivener documents from the Dropbox sync folder—big ones, smaller ones, very small ones. Doesn’t make any difference. Sync always works after removing and putting back a file, respectively, no matter which.

Cheers,
J.

----------------------
iMac Retina 5K 27-inch (Late 2015) | macOS 10.14.6
iPad Pro 12.9" 3rd Gen | iPadOS 13.3

By "Scrivener doc", do you mean a project?
(Anything else shouldn't be in the sync folder in the first place.)

[gyokusai]

Yes of course, a meant project.

I’ll revise my original post to prevent misunderstandings.

[Thomas Rabenstein]

Have you tried tapping Cancel to stop and restart, or does the crash happen so fast that you don’t have time to do that?

Sometimes it happens very quickly, sometimes it takes a few seconds. To interrupt a process that is still running to start it again makes no sense to me. Either it works or it doesn't work.

[Thomas Rabenstein]

I tried removing different Scrivener projects from the Dropbox sync folder—big ones, smaller ones, very small ones. Doesn’t make any difference. Sync always works after removing and putting back a project, respectively, no matter which.
But as soon as I work on any Scrivener project on my Mac or iPad, sync breaks down again and I have to repeat the above prodecure.

Wow, that sounds very elaborate and complicated. For me it wouldn't be a viable process, even if it works after some trial and error. I mean, the synchronization process is either simple and fast, or it's useless. I don't want to fiddle around for hours to copy my project to the iPad, I want to write. I'm also writing this with the aspect in mind that everything worked fine before iPaOs 13, using the same hardware and the same apps.

[CJ Parmenter]

I'm experiencing the same issue, as described in earlier posts. iPad Mini 2019, iOS v 13.3.

[lunk]

[Edited for clarification (projects)]

Not sure this helps but anyway. I found a work-around to sync between my Mac and my iPad:

1. On Mac or iPad, I close the Scrivener project after working on it.
2. Sync on iPad invariably crashes during “file list” retrieval.
3. On Mac, I remove a random Scrivener project from the Dropbox sync folder.
4. On iPad, sync works fine now.
5. On Mac, I put the removed Scrivener project back & wait until it’s Dropbox-synced.
6. On iPad, sync again works fine. All projects are now synced.

I tried removing different Scrivener projects from the Dropbox sync folder—big ones, smaller ones, very small ones. Doesn’t make any difference. Sync always works after removing and putting back a project, respectively, no matter which.

But as soon as I work on any Scrivener project on my Mac or iPad, sync breaks down again and I have to repeat the above prodecure.

Cheers,
J.

----------------------
iMac Retina 5K 27-inch (Late 2015) | macOS 10.14.6
iPad Pro 12.9" 3rd Gen | iPadOS 13.3

Does it suffice to have a really small, almost empty project to move out and back in?

[JimK]

Thomas, thanks for the screen shots. I have the same issues and a factory reset also didn't fix the issue (didn't take screenshots). 2019 iPad 12.9", iOS 13.3

[AmberV]

Many thanks to those that have tried minimising the system down to a basic level and testing to see if the problem is still present. I recognise that is a lot of work to do for troubleshooting, but what you’ve found is valuable information. It seems we can safely exclude myriad and difficult to track down variables like which apps you use, system configuration settings and so on.

It perhaps doesn’t shed any more light on how we can reproduce it though, unfortunately. In fact if anything it makes it more difficult in that if any device could theoretically work until certain changes are made to it, the odds would be much higher that we could cause the problem to appear with the right combination of settings. Instead it appears that the issue is somehow tied more to some specific hardware issue—perhaps even at a level beneath model lines (since I’m fairly sure we’ve seen contradicting cases where the same generation/model produces different results). So unfortunately that is getting into an area very difficult to narrow down further.

But as soon as I work on any Scrivener project on my Mac or iPad, sync breaks down again and I have to repeat the above prodecure.

That is likely because Scrivener doesn’t run a full file system scan if the top-level folders indicate no modification date change from the last sync. This way if you sync twice in a row, the second time you try it will simply detect nothing further needs to be done. It’s the same code that draws the icons on projects, indicating their current sync status.