All projects turned into strange black blocks, will not turn back.

Okay, so its a bit of a weird one and im not sure whats caused it.

Basically every single file on my laptop, when opened becomes nothing but lines of black blocks (please see picture.)

Once I have gone through each and every page and clicked highlight followed by remove highlight, the text returns to normal, except, as soon as I compile the project into any format at all, it compiles with the damn black blocks. I save the project, close it, re open it, the black blocks are back.

Someone please help me, im going insane.

P.S, please note - the image is just an example of a notes project - normally I have folder and sub folders, and each of these are converted into the evil black blocks of doom.

Aaaanyone at all

I guess try to contact support at their email. I’ve never experience this problem before, and I don’t have any suggestions or hypotheses as to why it’s happening. Thus my reluctance to add a post, but nothing of substance to the conversation.

Good luck!

I’ve seen old threads like this here in the forum. Have no time to search for them, but you can do it yourself…

As krastev mentioned, there have been older posts by folks with a similar issue. You can find them by doing a google search like this:

black blocks site:https://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/

The only time I experienced anything similar was with Windows Scriv a few releases ago, where syncing with the iOS version would result in pages appearing blank, due to the font being changed to white/no color. Sort of the reverse of what you’re experiencing. That was fixed around 1.9.8, I think.

Does it happen with new projects?

Only some projects or every project?

Do you have older project backups that you can open, to see if it impacts them now?

Hi Jim,

I’ve already trawled google and forums, even people with similar issues seemed to get no response, and the ones that did - the fix didn’t work.

It’s every project, all backups are the same too.

Its got to the stage where i’ve totally ditched scrivener and am now searching for a new writing software. This all seemed to happen after a copy and paste from google drive… I have no idea if that’s relevant.

Yup, this is an odd one.

If it’s happening to all projects, even older backups and new projects, then it’s got to be something global to your setup.

I couldn’t tell you what that would be, but one obvious thing to try is uninstalling/reinstalling Scrivener. You didn’t mention whether you’ve done that yet.

Another thing is to experiment with fonts. Try some different fonts, as fonts can get corrupted.

If you can, create a new test project that is having the issue, and zip/upload it here, I can open it to determine if I’m seeing the same thing.

Just some ideas, if you’re still willing to try to get Scrivener working again.

Best,
Jim