GNUcash crashes on save - losing all changes

[Chris Shenton]

Vincent V <vincentv at dsl.pipex.com> writes:

> My understanding of the 'Open Anyway' option on the file lock warning
> is that the programmer was actually trying to be thoughtful, I don't
> think this option used to exist.

> When GNUcash opens an accounts it writes a couple of temporary files
> to indicate that the file is in use, when it closes the accounts file
> it deletes them.

I've just seen this: gnucash died; when I started up, it said it
couldn't get the lock on my previous saved data.  I presume the dying
gnucash didn't remove its lock.

So how do I know what file to remove to unlock the lock? Or other
procedure necessary to get out of this condition?  Or, if I say "Open
Anyway" will it clear the lock for me?

> If the files exist then the user should be warned that 'The accounts
> file seems to be in use' (rather than the cryptic 'GNUcash could not
> obtain the lock' - which is only meaningful to the developers) and
> given the choice to 'Open as read-only' or 'If you are sure that no
> one else is using it then Open Normally'

I like this last one :-)