--add-price-quotes corrupted data file

[KevinK]

GnuCash 2.4.10 on Ubuntu 12.04
I've been using GnuCash since December 2004 and I have a tendency to keep
all my data unless there is some pressing need to purge.

When I tried to open GnuCash today, it told me there was a lock.  Being
single user, I bypassed that and then GnuCash went into a 100% CPU loop on
the loading data splash screen.  The splash screen did not update at all and
even waiting 15 to 20 minutes did not change anything.  I killed the process
and tried several things, all with the same result.  I finally recovered by
deleting the gnudata file and renaming the immediate prior backup.

I was able to determine the problem was caused by the --add-price-quotes
function.  I use a cron job to run "gnucash --add-price-quotes" every
weekday at a set time (many ticker symbols, all collecting from Yahoo).  The
bad gnudata file along with the lock file were timestamped at the daily
collection time on April 16th.  The backup file I recovered from was
timestamped at the daily collection time on April 15th (my last interactive
session was on April 14th).  When I looked in the price editor, the most
recent price quote for any stock was April 8th - so, the quote collection
ran on the 9th, 10th, 11th, 14th, and 15th without recording any stock
prices and without corrupting the data file.  However, the quote run on the
16th left an unusable data file along with the lock file.

After recovering from the backup, I deleted price history prior to 2013
(data file size dropped from 4.5Mb to 3.3Mb).  After saving my work, I was
able to retrieve quotes again with no apparent adverse effects.

I no longer have a problem but wanted to post this in case someone else ran
across the same issue and needed an explanation.  Solution: restore a backup
and purge some price history.

Developers may want to look at a more graceful way to tell users that they
are hoarding too much data.



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