How to View transactions prior to "Close Books"?

Geert Janssens janssens-geert at telenet.be
Mon Mar 1 11:32:54 EST 2010


On Sunday 28 February 2010, alavarre wrote:
> Thanks in advance, I have searched without joy: How do I view transactions
> older than the "Close Books" date?
> 
> :-/
> 
> My file was misbehaving and over 1 MB, so I thought it might be time to
> close books and simplify things. So I very carefully saved the file under a
> new name, then executed "Close Books" with an effective date of 12/31/09.
> 
> But the new file refuses to show any transactions prior to the month that I
> did "Close Books" (February 2010) for the accounts that were open when I
>  did so.
> 
> I can do a transaction report and see all the transactions back to when it
> started (2003), and the file size hasn't changed, so I know they are all
> still there. And if I open the file as root, all is fine. But as "andy"
> nothing shows before February.
> 
> No problem, I thought, I'll just open the backup file. No joy! IT refuses
>  to show older transactions.
> 
> What about the backup files on my offboard drive? Nope, same result.
>  Nothing shows before February.
> 
> The offboard backup file was not loaded when I "closed books" so could not
> possibly be corrupted or changed, so obviously it is a profile thing. If I
> open the file as root I see everything. OK, a profile thing.
> 
> So I copy the **backup** profile (2/5/10) for the file to
> /home/andy/.gnucash/books and overwrite the existing file profile, still no
> change!
> 
> So nuke /home/andy/.gnucash, reboot, and try again. No joy!!
> 
> But if I open any of the data files as root, all is fine.
> 
> So obviously there is some hidden configuration file somewhere denying
> "andy" access to older transactions.
> 
> But where? I even found /home/andy/.gconf/gnucash and replaced *that* with
> the backup from last October, no joy.
> 
> I've searched the menus, rightclicked the files, nothing shows how to fix
> this?
> 
> I'm sure I'll feel reeely dumb when someone tells me how to fix it, but I
> will also be VERY grateful..
> 
> Best regards, Andy
> 
I haven't used the Close books feature, so I don't know what it does exactly.

But it sounds as if there are some filters enabled on your accounts. You can 
open an account register, select "View->Filter by..." and see if this is set 
to hide certain transactions.

Geert


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