I have synced all my projects successfully so far both on my iPhone and iPad. All but one. It’s quite a large project with a lot of reference material (image files) that is twice the size of the second in line (132 MB). Everytime I sync I get a red x on this particular project and a message:
Not a very helpful message, considering it always fails on one file. Every time I repeat the sync I get “Syncing (2 of 2 files).” and then after a while the error. I tried deleting some larger files in the project but it didn’t make a difference, except the changes did get synced and the 2 of 2 became 37 of 37 before failing. Dropbox is paused on my Mac when I sync, the Dropbox app and Scrivener is closed on the other device and nothing is accessing the files as they are not shared in any way. It keeps baffling me, cause if I knew which file failed to sync, I could delete it from the project, or change it to fit the syncing specs. By the way, Dropbox shows green checkmarks in Finder before I hit sync on the iDevice.
iOS 9.3.2 (didn’t have time to update to 9.3.3 yet), OSX 10.11.6, Scrivener 2.8, Dropbox v7.3.29 for Mac
6 hours later and the problem still persists. I tried deleting the project from dropbox and then moving it back in more times than I can count. I even created a new project and manually copied all the files from the old. That reduced its size a lot (now under 100 MB) but that can’t be the problem as I read about other users with files measured in GB. Still nothing. Except now the problem migrated to another project, one I edited on my iPad, synced the changes and then opened it on my Mac and just saved it again.
I need to mention that I paused dropbox during the editing phase, to avoid any errors. Still… Here’s what I have now. It seems there is at least on file considered locked in each project with a problem.
The message is utterly useless cause as I mentioned before, Dropbox was paused on my Mac and my connection is certainly fast enough to transfer these files without timing out.
I am not giving up on this. Scrivener is the reason I started writing in the first place, as I tend to overorganize first and it allows me to do just that.
Since you have a lot of non-text files, the connection may just be timing out on it somehow. Dropbox doesn’t pass back much information about the error, hence the lack of description in the message in Scrivener.
I’d try transferring the project to your iOS devices over USB using iTunes, then drag it from the local storage section in the projects list to the Dropbox section. Also put a copy of the project in the linked Dropbox on your desktop and allow that to upload to the server (presumably already done). Once Dropbox has finished syncing on the desktop, run the sync on iOS. Since it already has an identical copy of the project on the device, it should be only a few files updating, and from there you’re good to go. Syncing only updates changed files (your text documents and internal files like the project binder); image files can’t be edited within Scrivener, so once they’re on the device, they shouldn’t be causing any hang ups with the process.
(Even if the problem is that Dropbox won’t sync a particular file, if it’s a non-text file, transferring via USB first may still work around the issue.)
Pausing drop box on your Mac doesn’t mean that everything is okay. It just means that any files that are currently being uploaded to the Dropbox server will be locked and suspended until you break the pause. You simply have to wait for Dropbox to finish on the desktop before doing anything else. And if you are moving a lot of files it could take some time, depending on the total size you are moving and the speed of the connection.
Just want to add this for anyone who may have an issue like I had in the coffee shop earlier. I too got that “Error 460” message. An internet connection (wifi) that works perfectly when you logged into iPad can go ‘stale’ when you try to sync again later on. Even if you can browse all over the internet with that connection, it can still be stale when you try to sync. I simply completely shutdown the iPad and reconnected to wifi. Then I did the sync since Scrivener already saved all my new writing. It worked without a problem and when I came home, I did the sync in Windows without any issues whatsoever.
Personally, I think the above scenario can happen a lot since many coffee shops with wifi have spotty connections. As soon as more than four people connect, the issues begin in places where owners don’t like to spend more than they have to for this ‘extra treat’.
Also note that unless you are making massive changes to many documents in the project in a single session, after the initial sync (which you wisely did wired), the future syncing should involve a lot fewer files and less bandwidth.
