Deleting text, can't handle large files, no update in sight.

[CLEasterwood]

I stopped counting how many time Scrivener has deleted words from my manuscript. I stopped counting the times we were told Version 3 will be released soon. Scrivener doesn't handle large files well at all & I'm tired of waiting & tired of losing texts. Not only am I having major chunks of my work lost, I can't recreate it. I can't even upgrade and since I bought it TWO days before the cut off for a 'free upgrade', I won't be paying for an upgrade. I won't upgrade software that's so unstable it can't be used . You've lost my trust by not releasing the software in a timely manner.
I'm an extremely unhappy customer & I won't be recommending Scrivener to anyone else.

[DavidR]

Hi, and welcome to the forums. We're mostly fellow users here, though Scrivener staff do look in. The frustration with the delays in v. 3 are widespread. Personally, I'm getting what I need from v. 1.9; but quite a number of people report that the beta in its current state, while some features are not in place, is safe to use for real work (that's not Scrivener's official position, just the reported experience of users).

But the real problem here seems to be the loss of text from large documents, if I'm reading you correctly. How large are we talking about? Do the documents contain just text, or images, tables, etc., as well?

[CLEasterwood]

There are no tables, but lots of comments & notes. I have 5 images in 2 different text files & the rest is text.
228500 Words in research (because I need it handy)
57500 for the revised MS.
Yes, it's a lot of words, but this shouldn't be a problem for something that is made for writers.

[krastev]

There are no tables, but lots of comments & notes. I have 5 images in 2 different text files & the rest is text.
228500 Words in research (because I need it handy)
57500 for the revised MS.
Yes, it's a lot of words, but this shouldn't be a problem for something that is made for writers.

If all that text is in the same two files you are missing the point of Scrivener and are trying to use it the way Word works. If that's the case try to read the Interactive Tutorial which can be found in the help menu.
One of my projects has close to a million words and I have never experienced any problems with it.

The reasons to lose words can be plenty and not nececearly related to Scrivener itself. Just a few examples: Saving your project on USB drive, Using unsuported cloud service, not backing up your project...

Good luck,
M

[DavidR]

Just to expand a bit on Krastev's point, Scrivener is designed to work on smaller blocks of material, which can be merged, compiled, etc., at a later stage. The material can be just as handy even when divided into multiple documents, using Scrivener links, searches, labels, etc. In fact, I would find that easier than searching through a long document. The main reason for doing it this way (or at least one reason) is that it makes arranging sections of text and relating them to one another much simpler than cutting and pasting, or dragging, blocks of text within one large document.

If that style of working just won't suit your workflow (and everybody's way of working is different), then you may indeed be better off with other software. But I'm still concerned about loss of text. I really don't think that should happen, even in a large document, unless, as Krastev suggests, there have been glitches in saving, syncing, and/or backing up; or an unexpected computer shutdown, for instance.

[CLEasterwood]

There have been no problems with backups. I back up after I finish every single chapter. I save regularly. It is not one long file its multiple text files within Scrivener and it'll just delete chunks of text from wherever it pleases. I've been using it quite a long time and this isn't the first time it's like the 7th or the 8th time. It's in one scrivener file but they're all separate texts. Each chapter is its own file and my notes are all different text files within Scrivener.

[DavidR]

OK, thanks for the clarification. And at this point, since I fortunately haven't experienced the problem, I'm going to bow out as not having anything useful to suggest. Well, OK, one more question: are you using sync to write on multiple devices, or is it all only on one computer?

[CLEasterwood]

It's on one computer. I don't use sync or cloud. I email backups to myself.

[lunk]

Scrivener doesn’t arbitrarily delete passages of text in a project. It can’t. So there must be something else going on, like you saving, renaming, and opening an older version, saving on unreliable storage media, or something like that. The only way to untangle that is to analyze exactly how you use Scrivener, and that would require very exact descriptions of what you did at each of those occasions.