Unknown Error Messages Re Scrivener & Dropbox

[Mikethebook]

Good point! Thanks.

[Mikethebook]

It's happened again but in a different scene. And it always seems to start while I'm working in compose mode. So frustrating!!! I rarely turn my computer off so I don't think it can be anything to do with incomplete syncing.

[mbbntu]

I rarely turn my computer off

Ah ... well that is the opposite of my normal practice. I may be old-fashioned, but I am a firm believer in closing down all programs that are not being used and shutting down the computer when not in use. I just like to make sure I have cleared out the memory, severed all connections with the outside world, and am starting with a blank slate for every session. Unix experts will probably say that this is completely unnecessary, but it has become my habit.

Don't know what to suggest except perhaps "fumigating" the project by creating a new, blank project on your hard drive, and dragging your work bit by bit into that from the present project. In the past, I have split a project into several smaller projects just for the sake of greater focus and ease of working. A faff, I know, but constant irritations and stoppages are no help to good writing.

[Mikethebook]

I don't have the time to be doing that right now. A deadline is looming. What I may do is a clean install of Sierra once the deadline has passed. I can't recall when that last happened so it's long overdue.

[JimRac]

Mike, sorry if this has been suggested already , but why don’t you just move your live project files out of Dropbox for the time being ? My impression was you aren’t using it to sync multiple devices, so really no need to keep the project on DB.

[Mikethebook]

That's right. I'm only using Dropbox to back up all my Scrivener files that are held in a back up folder. Removing the current project from the back up folder would also take it out of Dropbox reducing my protection. But it is backed up daily to Time Machine and iDrive and I could also copy it to a flash drive when I finish working each day. Good idea. If it happens again, I'll do that.

[JimRac]

Great, I hope that helps with these annoying messages.

If you're pointing your zipped backups to DropBox, than that should be sufficient for "off-site" backups of your specific in-progress project. (No need to store your live project files there too.) That is, as long as Scrivener is actually producing zipped backups, which it only will if you close your project or take manual backups. As it sounds like you are in crunch mode and may not be closing things down regularly, you might want to set Scriv up to take manual backups when you do CMD+S or whatever it is one does on a Mac, when one makes manual saves. You set that up in preferences, same place as where you tell Sciv where to store your backups. And then once or twice a day, more often if you're anal like me, you can do CMD+S and know that you just took a zipped backup (complete snapshot) of your important project.

Best,
Jim

[Mikethebook]

Thanks, Jim.