GnuCash could not obtain the lock file...

[Greg Feneis]

​Hi Folks,

Last night I had GnuCash running, got things ready to do my taxes and did a
save as.  I left GnuCash running on my computer over night when Windows 7
decided to do an update and restart the computer all on its own.  Today,
when I tried to start GnuCash I get a warning that it could not obtain the
lock file for the file name that I saved things to.  I got 4 options from
the warning to proceed with: I could open read only, create new file, Open
anyway, or quit.  I selected quit because I didn't know what the
consequences of the other 3 paths to go.

So, what's a lock file, and why can't it be obtained?  And, which way
should I go from this warning?  Or, should I do something else entirely?

I'm running Win 7 64, and  GnuCash 2.6.3 ​

​Thanks for any help!​


Kind regards,

Greg Feneis