[GNC] Can't open old GnuCash file

[Adrien Monteleone]

Incremental updates, yes, but you jumped 4 major versions and skipped 
those incremental updates.

The recommended process (in the wiki FAQ) is to upgrade in steps to each 
of the final releases of each major release, running Actions > Check & 
Repair > Check & Repair All upon first opening the file after each upgrade.

In your case, that is likely:

2.6.21 -> 3.11 -> 4.14 -> 5.3

remove 5.3, install 2.6.21 and proceed.

If you can't get 2.6.21 to install on Ubuntu 23.10, the easiest path 
would be to install an older Ubuntu (likely 16.04) in a virtual machine 
and install 2.6.21 there to do the check & repair. Repeat as needed for 
each gnucash version, but you will likely be okay using 23.10 from 4.x 
onward.

Regards,
Adrien

On 2/15/24 7:00 PM, MegaBrutal wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've been using GnuCash between 2015 to 2017 to help to straighten out
> my personal finances. Due to changes in my life, my transaction count
> increased significantly which required more and more time to enter,
> while I got less free time to do the accounting. Meanwhile, my
> financial problems basically got resolved and my motivation to keep on
> updating my GnuCash file dropped significantly.
> 
> Now I got a situation that I'm looking for certain transactions from
> around that time and I remembered that I should check my old GnuCash
> file, untouched since 2017-09-21. To my shock, the modern GnuCash
> version that comes with my distro (Ubuntu 23.10) crashes when I try to
> open my old file. Here is my GnuCash version and the backtrace I get:
> 
> ---
> 
> GnuCash 5.3
> Build ID: 5.3+(2023-06-26)
> 
> Backtrace:
> In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
>    1752:10  5 (with-exception-handler _ _ #:unwind? _ #:unwind-for-type _)
> In unknown file:
>             4 (apply-smob/0 #<thunk 7f192cf10360>)
> In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
>     2836:4  3 (save-module-excursion #<procedure 7f19170bcb80 at
> ice-9/eval-string.scm:66:9 ()>)
> In ice-9/eval-string.scm:
>       38:6  2 (read-and-eval #<input: string 7f19170bae70> #:lang _)
> In ice-9/eval.scm:
>      619:8  1 (_ #(#<directory (gnucash utilities) 7f192cface60>
> #<collectable-swig-pointer std::unique_ptr< GncOptionDB > *
> 563d43f24190>))
> In unknown file:
>             0 (GncOption-set-value #<pointer 0x563d43f29340> (absolute
> 1496181600 . 0))
> 
> ERROR: In procedure GncOption-set-value:
> Wrong type (expecting exact integer): (1496181600 . 0)
> 
> Some deprecated features have been used.  Set the environment
> variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED to "detailed" and rerun the
> program to get more information.  Set it to "no" to suppress
> this message.
> 
> ---
> 
> Maybe I was wrong that I expected some backward compatibility that
> modern versions are capable of performing incremental updates to old
> files to update it to the current file format... What to do now? Any
> suggestions?
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> MegaBrutal
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