Bump this thread whenever Scrivener syncing bugs give you a heart attack

Always fun to be settling down to bed only to JOLT up with the sudden realization that Scrivener may have merged your current draft with the 9-month-old barely-related version on your other device, because it has the worst cloud file version management of any writing app known to man.

Luckily I was able to disconnect my iPad from wifi in time to salvage a manual backup in this case, because I stopped trusting Scrivener to do its job a long time ago.

dpaterso said:

Pardon my intruding into your thread of Scrivener woes, but I gotta wonder why docs that are 9 months different would have the same filename.

-Derek

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Because Scrivener uses project-based management. One of its biggest strengths is that you as a user don’t have to mess around with the individual files in the project. You ordinarily can’t even see them. Scrivener doesn’t do a good job of tracking draft manipulation history between devices, however, which for instance in a bad sync can mean you suddenly have dozens or hundreds of long-deleted zombie sections popping back into your manuscript.

I do occasionally (manually) create new copies of entire projects, which are enormous, but I’d forgotten to do so for some time with this particular one since this was a manuscript I usually only edit on my iPad.

If I were writing shorter works right now I’d just use Google Docs. The sync there is so much more reliable. But for a sizable novel, Scrivener has some truly invaluable features. Being able to label, manipulate, compare, and move around chapters or subsections on the fly is so useful and time-saving compared to manual file management. And when it comes time to compile, Scrivener saves an unbelievable amount of time. Exporting to manuscript format takes a matter of minutes instead of hours or days of assembly and tinkering. It also just has a wonderful iOS interface—minimal, customizable, and distraction-free.

So this is not necessarily a hate thread. I love Scrivener. I would love it so much more if its cloud sync didn’t give me panic attacks every few months.

Yeah, I’ve used their troubleshooting recommendations — including the steps required to get rid of those persistent post-sync errors that keep cropping up even after versions are righted again. That’s an old article at this point, yet the problem still pops up on their support forums regularly (and about half the App Store reviews highlight issues with syncing).

It’s possible that some of the sync issues are caused by my not “closing out” the iOS app consistently when I’m finished with it (though I always manually save). But that itself is an annoyance which goes entirely against iOS design ethos; I’ve never worked with another app that required quitting for proper sync function. Part of the convenience of working on an iPad is that the device is always on and ready to go when you need it. You rarely need to restart the system, your apps more or less stay open exactly where you left off, and because of the way memory management works you scarcely need to quit anything except to address an app freeze.

The quirk also means that if you happen to leave home or the office with Scrivener open on a device there, you’re risking havoc by opening it at another location. That’s a frustrating design. And it’s not a problem I’ve ever encountered with Google Docs, Pages, Office 365, or any app that makes use of iCloud sync. It’s also worth noting that none of those require (slow) manual saving to keep cloud-updated, which itself feels like a throwback to the 90s.

But again, Scrivener is amazing at everything else is does. I consider the frustrations a price worth paying for the rest of the functionality, because lord knows the dollar price of the app is negligible by comparison.