Fwd: Re: losing data

[Maf. King]

On Tue 24 December 13 10:43:00 you wrote:
> Hi There
> 
> I am, myself,  not quite sure what happened, and why.  I will try and
> explain.
> 
> I went to <File> and underneath <properties> there was: 1. Balance Sheet(
> equile)Aug. 2013. Gnucash
> 							     2. Documents.
> Gnucash
> 							     3.
> Documents.201309201100106.gnucash
> 							     4. Balance
> Sheet.gnucash
> 
> (No.1. Balance Sheet(equile)Aug.2013)  was what also appeared in the top
> left hand corner above the Tool Bar.  I took a chance and clicked on (No.2.
> Documents. Gnucash.)  and all of a sudden Gnucash started running through
> all my accounts and reports.  This carried on for some time and when it
> stopped I  discovered I had again lost some data, but this time only from a
> certain date in November. I also noticed that underneath <properties>,
> (Documents. Gnucash.)  was now No.1 and ( Balance Sheet(equile) had moved to
> No.2. Also the bar above the toolbar was replaced by ( Documents. Gnucash.)
> followed by the name of the account I had open at that instant.
> 
> Hopefully you can explain this, because I still do not understand how it
> worked, but in the meantime my own solution therefore is; stay clear of
> anything under <File>.
> 

Hi Chris.
I'll try to explain by the way of an analogy to a non-computerised accounts 
"system" of keeping receipts in a shoebox under the bed. Yes, it's a stretch, 
(and a not very good system). Bear with me!

Gnucash can track multiple sets of accounts - maybe husband, wife, joint (for 
example).  Each set of transactions is stored in it's own data file.  This is 
very similar to several shoeboxes stuffed full of paper receipts stored under 
the bed.  E.G. One shoe box for him, one for her and one full of joint things.

If you used the "joint" shoebox by mistake when adding the september's pile of 
receipts, when you next came to your shoebox in november, and those receipts 
were not there, would you assume that mice had eaten them, or that you had 
done something odd last time round?

Gnucash remembers the 4 most recent shoe boxes that you looked in (the 
numbered list in the file menu), and by default starts up with the *most* 
recent one (number 1 in the list) already open and ready to go - the program's 
display window title bar tells you the name of the file (shoebox) that is 
presently open for editing.

At some point, I believe that you created a balance sheet (eguile) report, and 
intended to keep that as a separate page for later use or distribution to 
others.  You should have used "Export" to create a HTML report file, but you 
used "Save As" which created a clone of your shoebox with all the receipts at 
that date in it.  Easy and very understandable mistake to make.

Newly added receipts only went into the original shoebox.   Then you somehow 
got in a knot by opening the "clone shoebox" and working with that for a 
while.  (Maybe you were trying to send the balance sheet to an accountant or 
colleague?)  So it seems as though some data had disappeared, when it has just 
gone into the wrong shoebox.

Personally, because I have 6 or so sets of books that I use at different 
frequencies over the average month, I nearly always use the "Click on Datafile 
in filemanager" way of starting gnucash, only very seldom do I use a command 
or "main/start" menu approach.  If you are not on a Mac, where this method has 
some known problems, may I suggest that this way of starting GC may help to 
avoid confusion in the future, as you would always know the name of the file 
(shoebox) that you have opened. YMMV, of course

Seaonal Goodwill,
Maf.