Need help (seriously) parsing gnucash data file

[Fred Bone]

[...]
> On Saturday 04 May 2013 14:08:44 len.seifert at gmail.com wrote:
> > While checking wherever I could, I came across a dialog you had with
> > someone (like me, I suppose) who had a similar problem.  I note that
> > this was in 2010 and so I am unsure as to whether you are still doing
> > this kind of "public service", but my dilemma being what it is, I
> > thought I might give it a try. I'd been using GnuCash for some time, and
> > it's been my blessing since some bad old days with Quicken.  A computer
> > crash recently obliged me to restore my Acer laptop to factory defaults.
> >  I then downloaded the current version (2.4.1.3, I believe) and
> > attempted to open the file (one of several; I've saved fairly
> > religiously) from an external hard drive.  I was greeted by the "error
> > parsing file" message, and thus began my quest to remedy the situation. 
> > I found help that seemed encouraging, suggesting that I uncompress the
> > file, open it in a text editor and then edit it in the manner described.
> > Unfortunately, I'm not even able to uncompress the file, getting a
> > message indicating that it is a broken file.  I attempted it with a few
> > other saved data files, with the same result.  I even downloaded earlier
> > versions of GnuCash; no soap. I thought I might be too old to weep
> > aloud, but while I'm too old for many other things, I'm not so sure now.
> > I wonder if you are still doing the kind of things you were, and if so,
> > might you be of some help?  I would be enormously grateful.

The usual cause of this problem (I thought) was trying to open the wrong 
file. That is, instead of the actual data file (stored in whichever 
location the user chose), trying to open the file of the same name in the 
.gnucash/books folder/directory - which is the metafile where Gnucash 
stores the state of your session last time you closed it.

The simple test is to open the file in a text editor. If it is a small 
text file that starts something like this:
============
[Top]
BookGuid=345640802fad9f93003c6ae1342d72dd
WindowCount=1

[Window 1]
PageCount=1
FirstPage=1
=============
then you are opening the wrong file and need to go and find the right 
one.

This takes about ten seconds and should be a lot quicker than messing 
around with uncompression software, expecially for Windows users who may 
not have gzip-compatible software installed already.

If on the other hand the file is apparently gibberish then it may well be 
the gzipped file you were expecting to open.