Backup and Log File Retention Question

[Mike Overholt]

Thanks for responding! Here are answers to the questions that you asked:

 

The OS version on my computer is Windows 10 and I keep it patched.

 

I updated GnuCash to 2.6.10 about the same time I posted the question. I try to keep fairly current, but I was on 2.6.7 previously.

 

I have never noticed any problems when shutting down. I generally do it by saving my changes and then clicking the “Close” [ X ] button in the upper right corner of the window. I have tried using File | Quit on the menu as well.

 

I checked permissions on the folder that contains the *.gnucash and *.log files. Both the SYSTEM account and the local Administrators group (of which I am a member) have “Full Control”. I presume that the delete would be done under the context of my identity since that’s who I’m running the program as. Just to be sure, I manually deleted about 2 months’ worth of files through Windows Explorer without problem. The oldest files are currently dated 2015-12-01 (38 days old) and my retention settings are currently at 25 days. There are 13 backup files and 29 log files that have been created since my original message. There are 50 files older than 25 days.

 

If there’s any more information I can provide, just let me know!

 

Mike:o  

 

From: Tommy Trussell [mailto:tommy.trussell at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 7, 2016 11:01 AM
To: Mike Overholt <mover at charter.net>
Cc: GNU Cash User <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Backup and Log File Retention Question

 

 

 

On Fri, Jan 1, 2016 at 10:43 AM, Mike Overholt <mover at charter.net <mailto:mover at charter.net> > wrote:

According to the FAQ (paragraph 3.1.5) I see that I should be able to set
the length of time that backup & log files are retained. It's my impression
from the documentation that GnuCash should automatically delete files older
than specified in [Preferences | General | Files | Retain log/backup
files:]. I've verified that this is set to "For: 30 days" on my system, yet
I see that there are over 2,000 files going back as far as 2014-04-25.

Am I misunderstanding how this setting works? Are there other settings that
might be causing this behavior? I have plenty of free disk space and can
always delete older files manually, but it would be convenient if this were
automatic.

 

I didn't see any replies to your query... so I will jump in. From my observations, the FAQ is correct. I believe the files get cleaned out when GnuCash exits (properly). Here are a couple of random thoughts to help you track down the problem...

 

1) What operating system and what version GnuCash are you running? Has it been a long time since you updated GnuCash? The current stable version is 2.6.10 (released December 20, 2015) though your operating system may not show a more recent one. 

 

--> In particular, if you are running an OS based upon Ubuntu 14.04 "Trusty" LTS, you may be running GnuCash 2.6.1, which has an unfortunate packaging bug that causes GnuCash to crash on exit. Your OS may be set to suppress the crash message, but you can see the crash clearly if you launch gnucash from a terminal and then close it normally. (Looking back at the circumstantial evidence, maybe you upgraded Ubuntu soon after its release and haven't installed the latest GnuCash, which is most easily available for Ubuntu via the getdeb.net <http://getdeb.net>  web site.)

 

2) Failing the above, is it possible the permissions on the data directory are strange, such that GnuCash doesn't have permission to delete? (The permission options and places to look depend on your operating system and desktop environment.)

 

 

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