What are files named something like Filename.gnucash.tmp-a00396

[Dennis Shimer]

Derek

No to the server question (other than the previously mention bittorent
sync).  User said he got some kind of "could not save" message at which
point he stopped and we will talk later tonight.

Colin

Working on the "something interrupted" theory (I'll worry about tracking
what later).  As I read Fred's reply and the steps in order it seems like
the tmp file is created from the existing data first which seems like it
should be the latest iteration of the file.  I'll know later when we
examine it together. In trying to understand the log files; if I have a
backup and a log file with the same date stamp name, will the log file
bring the backup up to date with the last changes or does that log file
track what it took to get up to that named backup? Or put another way does
the log file start recording after the backup is made?  The more I try the
more confusing my question seems, do you get what I'm saying?

Dennis

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 11:54 AM, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 4 February 2015 at 14:52, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Dennis Shimer <dshimer at gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> I understand the backups and the log files but recently I had friend
> with a
> >> gnucash file just disappear. One day it's there, the next it isn't I'm
> not
> >> done helping him trace down what actually happened but there was a file
> >> with the extension .tmp-a00396. I know he is using a fairly recent
> version
> >> on Windows 7 and the file looks like something ver near the last saved
> >> version of the .gnucash file.
> >>
> >> What is this file, where does it come from, and how likely that it is in
> >> fact a complete copy of what he was last working on?
> >
> > You say this is on Win7; is this on a file share server, by chance?
> >
> > This file is a temporary file that GnuCash uses during the save process.
> > It creates a new file, writes the data into it, then moves the old file
> > to a backup and renames the temporary file to the filename.  If GnuCash
> > gets interrupted during the process it could, theoretically, leave the
> > temp file hanging around.
>
> Since I think the OP's original problem was that his accounts file had
> disappeared then possibly what happened was that gc was interrupted
> (power fail for example) just at the moment the old file had been
> renamed to the backup file, but before the temp file was renamed to be
> the original accounts file name.  That would explain both the presence
> of the temp file and the absence of the original file.
>
> Colin
>