Using Gnucash from multiple computers?

Mark Phillips mark at phillipsmarketing.biz
Tue Oct 14 14:00:07 EDT 2014


John,

I remember some earlier posts on this topic which included a warning that
Gnucash is not designed to be a multi-user program. The so-what to this
fact is that Gnucash reads the entire database into memory when it starts,
and then saves the database when it closes. So, one can lose data if one is
not careful. For example, one computer has the data file open and another
computer adds a transaction and then exits. The data from the first
computer will over write the database when it closes, and the posted
transaction from the second computer will be lost. There is a setting in
Gnucash to update the db more frequently, but even so, I think there is a
small chance of losing data this way. Is this caveat still true, or did I
misunderstand the issue?

Thanks,

Mark
On Oct 14, 2014 7:08 AM, "John Ralls" <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:

> Dang it, after preaching about copying the list, I forgot to copy the list.
>
> On Oct 14, 2014, at 1:20 AM, Sean Clarke <seanchk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi John,
> >
> > by GNC_DOT_DIR do you mean the .gnucash directory in /home ?
> >
> > If not then what am I looking for?
> >
> > Also I don't have a .bashrc in /home  which is where I was expecting it.
> >
> > Can you give me a little more help please.
> >
> > At the moment I have all (?) the .gnucash account data files in a folder
> on Google Drive and apart from having to remember to exit the program on
> one machine before opening it on another (because of the LCK file),
> everything seems fine.
>
> Please remember to copy the list on all replies: Use "reply all" or, if
> your email client supports it, "reply list".
>
> GNC_DOT_DIR is an environment variable. If it's not set the default is
> $HOME/.gnucash, where HOME is another environment variable pointing the
> user's home folder, which on Linux is /home/<username>. You want to set it
> like this:
> GNC_DOT_DIR="$HOME/Google Drive/gnucash"
> or something similar.
>
> .bashrc is one of several possible names for startup files, see the bash
> manpage for a complete list. Note that none of them will exist unless the
> user explicitly creates them, and nthat bash looks for them in a particular
> order; once it finds one it stops looking for more.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
> > On 14 October 2014 09:29, John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:
> >
> > On Oct 13, 2014, at 4:58 PM, Sean Clarke <seanchk at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Is it possible to stick the Gnucash settings file on Google Drive and
> then
> > > be able to use the same settings from multiple computers?
> > >
> > > I want to have Gnucash on all my computers so depending which one I'm
> using
> > > I have access to my financial analysis.
> > >
> > > Or will I run into problems?
> >
> > Nope, piece of cake: Just set GNC_DOT_DIR to a folder on your Google
> Drive. You didn't say what OS you're using,
> > so in Linux you can just set it in .bashrc. On OSX you'll want to edit
> Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/Gnucash. On Windows
> > the easiest way is to edit the shortcut in the menu (right-click on it
> and select Properties from the context menu).
> >
> > Regards,
> > John Ralls
> >
> >
>
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