Dropbox keeps versions of your files. For packages, like .scriv, you’ll need to navigate into the files and look at them. I’d probably copy the text out and re-insert it via Scrivener than trying to restore the files directly.
Perhaps this would help?
FYI I’ve been using Dropbox and Scrivener flawlessly since Dropbox came out - opening projects on different computers without incident. The only issue I had was I once opened Scrivener before Dropbox updated and I had a previous version onscreen. But it fixed itself. Just thought I’d share.
Babyfett, thanks for your experiences. The issue isn’t so much whether or not one or two people can use it just fine, but whether enough people are having a contrary experience. Before this post was put up on the board, we were getting several “Help my project is corrupted!” posts a month, and nearly 100% of the time it was due to DropBox or services like it (but nevertheless giving Scrivener a bit of a bad reputation). So a post like this is more about mitigating a baseline level of genuine data loss, than saying something is completely impossible. Since this post has gone up, data loss and project corrupt has virtually vanished.
Just as a data point… I have been backing up to dropbox using a symlink to my scrivener directories. It has worked just fine despite the fact that multiple files often need to be transferred. (I don’t work on multiple computers; this is just for backup. I could imagine that if two people were trying to work on the same set of files at the same time there would be difficulties).
I did increase Scrivener’s time before autosave to reduce network activity, but this was not due to any concerns about correctness. Dropbox has seemed quite solid for me.
(I make local backups as well … as everyone should 
Thank you Amber.
Ran into this problem just this morning. For the first time tried saving a Scrivener file to DropBox and then continuing on at my office. Needless to say it didn’t work. Your suggestion to back up the project to Dropbox as a zip file worked to perfection. I can open that file at the office and pick up where I left off.
How many times do you get to find the answer to your question as the top post in any forum? It’s a good day!
I’ve been using DropBox ‘live’ without problems, but I’m extremely disciplined about shutting down Scrivener, never having a file open on two computers, etc. But I’m human and I might blow it some day.
How about a feature that automatically creates a backup into a specified folder whenever you shut down Scrivener? A checkbox in the Preferences would enable you to turn this feature on or off.
Now, whether you are using dropbox or not, you get a backup every time you close Scrivener.
This exact feature is coming in 2.0. You set your backup folder in the Preferences and choose whether you want a backup to be made to that folder when you open or close a project (or both), and whether it should be zipped).
All the best,
Keith
Zipping my backup onto my mounted iDisc is working fine.
An automated import and merge / validate status function for those files would be nice!
I just save a backup file to the hard drive. I then copy it onto Interarchy (a Mac FTP app). It then gets simultaneously uploaded to MobileMe iDisk and Amazon S3. That way, I have a local copy and two remote copies. Better safe than sorry.
Regards
I only started using Scrivener a couple days ago, but here is my experience.
MobileMe iDisk HATES SCRIVENER’s GUTS lol. It was okay with Jer’s Novel Writer and it’s method of files, but my iDisk was having seizures and wasn’t wanting to sync anything, taking forever, etc when I switched to Scrivener. I decided to give my DropBox a shot, and it syncs any changes within a few seconds and never has issues.
That said, I use DropBox for ‘live’ backup and iDisk for all my zipped backups. Just in case :mrgreen: But for what it’s worth, DropBox 0.7.110 and Scrivener 1.54 have been going well these past few days, and I
ve spent a lot of time where it would be saving a LOT as I port all my work over to the new software.
Out of curiosity, is there any risk of corruption of a Scrivener file if it is zipped or is it safer zipped for backup purposes. For myself I like to save it both ways.
If I understand your question correctly: I’m not sure there’s any intrinsic difference between saving and zipping for back-up and saving and zipping by other means, other than that in the former case the file is automatically timed and dated.
I find it very easy and convenient to use the back-up/zipping functionality in conjunction with Dropbox.
No, you misunderstand me. I’m wondering whether zipping has any dangers in it; is there the possibility of the file being corrupted within the zip and not being fully retrievable.
No - as long as you check the zip unzips fine, then the zip is a flat file so the files within it cannot be affected. The only danger is if the zip file itself becomes corrupted because of a partial copy, but this danger is only the same as for any other file on your system.
All the best,
Keith
The only disadvantage to zip is that it is a bit “all the eggs in one basket”. If the bytes of the file get corrupted because of media glitches or what have you, then it can result in an archive that doesn’t uncompress. With a Scrivener project all of the data is distributed amongst many files, so the possibility of the whole thing corrupting is much less (though if one of the critical files gets damaged that could be a world of hurt). On the other hand, zip files are more portable, and less liable to get accidentally messed up on other operating systems.
That said, the chances of this happening are pretty slim. Back in the days of floppy discs, early flash drive tech, and cheap CD-R media, it was much more common to see files get corrupted in transit or storage. I can see no reason to save both the compressed version and the full project. If you want redundancy, you’d be better off saving two zip files and putting them in different places. Different places should optimally be two different geographic locations (DropBox would count as one).
Thanks for all the help.
According to a help page at DropBox, they are working on a fix for Dropbox’s unfriendly relations with Scrivener and a number of other products:
The problem is metadata and isn’t confined to Scrivener. iWork 05-08 files also have problems, although there’s no problem with iWork 09. Here is their current warning:
There is a fix that’s been in their pipeline since February 2010 and is being tested. If you consider yourself a “brave soul,” you might want to join the project. It’d be particularly helpful to make sure the fixes in general work well with Scrivener. Use Scrivener’s backup feature consistently, and you wouldn’t be at risk of lost files.
I’ll be absolutely delighted when this fix leaves beta. Currently, I do all my Scrivener writing on my MacBook because the hassle of risk-free synching it with my iMac is just too great. TaskPaper and WriteRoom synching via SimpleText have taught me the joys of multi-platform synching. I’d like to spread that joy to Scrivener.
–Michael W. Perry, Untangling Tolkien
Hey Michael,
Thanks for that update. That’s really good news. When that comes out of beta, along with Scrivener’s ability to detect whether a project is already open (which works better in 2.0), that will be a really good solution for sharing a Scrivener project between machines (although obviously because of connection issues it’s always a good idea to back up).
Incidentally, it’s not strictly true that there is no problem with iWork '09 files - although generally that is the case. With 09, Apple changed the default file format of .pages files from package files to zip files. This is why there is no problem. However, there is still the option, even in Pages '09, to “Save new documents as packages” (available via Preferences). So even though it is very unlikely that anyone would check this option in Pages, if you did, you’d experience the same problems as with Pages 05-08. That’s just worth mentioning for Pages users.
The support problem I see most frequently with Dropbox and Scrivener files is caused by Dropbox renaming files inside the Scrivener project - e.g. binder.scrivproj becomes binder-myComputer.scrivproj - which means Scrivener can’t find the necessary files. If they fix this, it will be great.
Thanks again,
Keith
Hi all, this has come up again over on their forums. Sorry to disappoint, this really has nothing to do with metadata and so Dropbox 0.8 won’t fix anything unless Scrivener uses extended attributes or resource forks (and it ordinarily doesn’t, AFAIK, unless you drop a really old school file in your project).
Their FAQ is wrong in suggesting otherwise.
Keith is right, it’s really about the package files. That will probably never be ‘fixed’ because technically Dropbox cannot infer what constitutes a valid package file. All it sees are a bunch of files (nested within directories), that it tries to keep in sync as quickly as possible. Scrivener could hypothetically switch to a single-file format, implement some kind of atomic write like an SQL database, or implement other validity-checking measures to make sure it isn’t edited on two machines. It sounds like Keith’s moved towards that last one a bit in 2.0. In the mean time, I’ve found that working outside of the Dropbox monitored file tree, and then saving backups into the tree, is a decent workaround.
Thanks cyberbryce. I wish they would fix their FAQ because it really isn’t representative of the problem, which is much more esoteric in my experience. As you suggest, the best way to work is to stay out of the DropBox tree with Scrivener projects—and use it to keep your backup storage in sync or save distribution copies in zipped format.