gnucash crashes on open due to missing custom report

[Jeff Hinrichs - DM&T]

On Jan 6, 2008 9:50 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Quoting Jeff Hinrichs - DM&T <jeffh at dundeemt.com>:
>
> > I just encountered the following situation and want to know if I
> > should file a bug?
>
> no...
>
> > 1) create a custom report, save it, close gnucash **with the report open**
> > 2) edit saved-reports-2.0 and remove the custom report definition
> > 3) start gnucash and watch it die
> >
> > If gnucash tries to open a missing custom report (listed in
> > ~/.gnucash/books/ ) that doesn't exist in saved-reports-2.0 it dies.
> > (leaving locks in place)
> >
> > expected results: gnucash should allow for not being able to open a
> > listed report window when opening a custom report.  Especially in
> > light of the fact that the end user needs to manually edit
> > saved-reports-2.0 to remove a custom report -- saved-reports should be
> > treated more cautiously,  if the state file lists a state that gnucash
> > can't restore, it should report it then ignore that specific state and
> > move to the next.
>
> If you manually edit your saved-reports files you can also manually
> edit the gnucash .gnome config file and report any open pages that
> contain that report.
>
This isn't documented any where that I could find and gnucash just
"dies" with no indication of why.  It wasn't until I restored a backup
and it wouldn't open either yet other gnucash data files would, that I
found the state files and then looking at one that listed more than
just the Accounts window open did I begin to suspect what was
happening.  I am a developer and I suspect that the average end user
would not be able to correct this on their own.   As for manually
editing the saved-reports file, it would be better if users didn't
have to manually edit them but since they are required to do just
that, the saved-reports file should be treated more cautiously than it
is.

I'm not trying to be combative here -- I'm trying to help out by
giving feedback from a new user perspective -- something that quickly
vanishes.   A new user will most likely try a number of things with
custom reports as a part of their learning process.  I had made a
number of throw away reports while documenting
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=507671 , it was these
reports that I was trying to clean out.   I suspect most new users
would create more than a couple useless custom reports as they learn
gnucash.  The custom reports UI is no where close to the level of the
rest of gnucash.

-jeff