Main File Name & Location

[Bill Edelman]

okay thanks BB, I understand now.  

I had created a test company, parked the files for it in a temporary folder, and when I wanted to test drive a feature or outcome of an entry operation without risking the live data, I’d open the main file (or what I thought was the main file) for the test account and then would switch back.  Obviously I’d been opening the most recent backup by mistake. I’m hoping that since it was always the most recent backup (which should be the same as the main file), I didn’t lose any work.

Glad offsite backup is so easy :)

I read the post regarding corrupting another sync’d PC, but in this case it is solely to have an offsite copy of the files in case my laptop gets a migraine.

Thanks everybody,
..Bill..


From: Buddha Buck 
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 5:14 PM
To: Bill Edelman 
Cc: GnuCash Users List 
Subject: Re: Main File Name & Location


On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 5:05 PM, Bill Edelman <bill at billedelman.com> wrote:

  Two part question / clarification.

  1. The main file name (and subsequently the backup files) have been growing
  longer.  What?, you say?

  I created the file name IAIE Finances when I setup the software (only using
  gnucash for a single entity) and as expected gnucash appended that name with
  ".gnucash.[date & time]".  So what am I doing to cause gnucash to randomly
  append that again on the tail end of a main file..  and more than once.

  Here's the current name of the main file:
  IAIE Finances -
  .gnucash.20131029174105.gnucash.20131101131004.gnucash.20131105124444


The main file name is the name of whatever gnucash file you open.  The dated .gnucash files are backups.

If you open the file "IAIE Finances.gnucash", GnuCash will create a backup file with the name "IAIE Finances.gnucash.20131111171134.gnucash".  If you then (incorrectly) treat the backup file as the "main file", you'll get "IAIE Finances.gnucash.20131111171134.gnucash.20131111181245.gnucash", and you'll go insane as the file names get longer and longer.  And you might notice a missing transaction or two along the way.

To avoid this, always open the "IAIE Finances.gnucash" file, with no dated extensions.  You'll get files with dated extensions, but they are backups and can be ignored until something goes wrong.

  2. I want gnucash to save the main (and by definition, the log, lock and
  backup files) in a folder that I create in Dropbox on my PC.  This is to
  provide an automatic off-site backup of these files.

  Do I simply copy the existing files to the new folder, launch gnucash, and
  open the most recent main file from there?  After gnucash opens the main
  filet there once, will it continue to use the new location going forward?
  I've read the Guide Basics Backup and that was what it seemed to suggest.

That's what works for me.  I also double-click the gnucash file in my DropBox folder to start GnuCash, and that works.