No suitable backend was found for /Volumes/Secure/GnuCash2016/Personal2016.gnucash

Eric Beversluis ebever at researchintegration.org
Thu Sep 28 16:07:39 EDT 2017



Eric Beversluis  
Short fiction at www.ericbeversluis.com

On September 28, 2017 at 15:00:02, John Ralls (jralls at ceridwen.us) wrote:
>  
> > On Sep 28, 2017, at 11:17 AM, Eric Beversluis wrote:  
> >
> >
> >
> > Eric Beversluis
> > Short fiction at www.ericbeversluis.com
> >
> > On September 28, 2017 at 12:56:30, Eric Beversluis (ebever at researchintegration.org)  
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Eric Beversluis
> >> Short fiction at www.ericbeversluis.com
> >>
> >> On September 28, 2017 at 12:17:20, John Ralls (jralls at ceridwen.us) wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> On Sep 28, 2017, at 8:58 AM, Eric Beversluis wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> I’ve recently moved to Mac Sierra. Have been using GnuCash successfully there.  
> This
> >>> morning when I opened gnucash I got this message:
> >>>>
> >>>> No suitable backend was found for /Volumes/Secure/GnuCash2016/Personal2016.gnucash  
> >>>>
> >>>> ??
> >>>>
> >>>> Only thing I can think is that I moved some older versions of my GnuCash files to trash.  
> >>> Had several sitting in other places as a result of the move and of setting up the encrypted  
> >>> image /Volumes/Secure.
> >>>>
> >>>> I seem to be able to open one of the backups, Personal2016.gnucash.20170927131325.gnucash.  
> >>> But when I try to save it as Personal2016.gnucash, after having moved the original  
> Personal2016.gnucash
> >>> to trash, I get the same “No suitable backend” error.
> >>>>
> >>>> Also strange: Mac or GnuCash or something is creating these two zero byte files:  
> >>>>
> >>>> Personal2016.gnucash.20170927131325.gnucash.0.1139.LNK
> >>>> Personal2016.gnucash.20170927131325.gnucash.LCK
> >>>> ??
> >>>
> >>> Those files are created by the xml backend. The LCK file is the lock file that the backend  
> >>> uses to ensure that only one user is connected to the file at a time. The LNK file is part  
> >>> of a hack to ensure that locking works on an old remote file protocol called NFS, for  
> "network
> >>> file system".
> >>>
> >>> If you save Personal2016.gnucash to a non-encrypted volume is GnuCash able to open  
> >> it?
> >>> Does enabling or disabling compression in Preferences (General tab, middle of the  
> >> page,
> >>> "Compress Files") make a difference?
> >>>
> >>> Is /Volumes/Secure encrypted with File Vault or a third-party program?
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>> John Ralls
> >>>
> >>>
> >> If I save the backup to Desktop as Personal2016.gnucash, it opens.
> >>
> >> If I ‘save as’ the open version to /Volumes/Secure/GnuCash2016/, it get the error.  
> Even
> >> after disabling compression before the save as.
> >>
> >> I tried saving to /Volumes/Secure/Gnucash2016/ as Gnucash2016_New.gnucash, but  
> >> that generated the same error on opening.
> >>
> >> If I try to copy the GnuCash2016_New.gnucash version to Desktop I get this error:
> >>
> >> "The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “GnuCash2016_New.gnucash”  
> >> can’t be read or written.
> >> (Error code -36)”
> >>
> >> But despite this warning, it copies something there with a size of 3.3MB, whereas the  
> >> other files are all aboutl 254KB.
> >>
> >> The wierd thing is that it seemed to be working OK until I moved the non-secure copies  
> to
> >> Trash.
> >>
> >> The secure partition (image?—not fully up on Mac jargon yet) was created with Disk  
> Utility
> >>> New Image > Blank Image. Whether that uses File Vault I don’t know. I somehow thought  
> >> File Vault encrypted the whole disk.
> >
> > Thought maybe it was a permissions thing. Changed to 755 and used terminal to copy to  
> /Volumes/Secure. Looked like that solved it.
> >
> > But no. What’s happening: even if I click on the file in the secure directory, GnuCash  
> is opening the one on the desktop.
> >
> > If I rename the one on the Desktop and try to open the one from the secure directory I get  
> the old “No suitable backend” error. I think this has been happening all along and moving  
> the non-secure versions to trash made that no longer possible.
> >
> > That’s weird: click on one file and gnucash chooses to open a different one.
>  
> Double-clicking on a file doesn't work in GnuCash, it just opens GnuCash with the previously  
> loaded file. You have to use File>Open to change files unless the file you want to switch  
> to is in the most-recently-used list at the bottom of the File menu.
>  
> FileVault is an encrypted file system. Each partition on a physical disk and every disk  
> image contains a file system, so that's what FileVault encrypts. Some people get confused  
> because FileVault says that it's on or off for "disk Macintosh HD",
> but Macintosh HD is a partition, not the whole disk.
>  
> OK, so /Volumes/Private is a mounted disk image created with Disk Manager. I've been  
> using those for years with no problems, though it was created with Disk Utility from a  
> previous version of MacOS. If Finder has trouble with the disk image, everything else  
> will too. Have you run Disk Manager's First Aid on it?
>  
> What Disk Manager settings did you use to create the /Volumes/Secure disk image?
>  

/Volumes/Secure did not pass FirstAid. I tried to delete it but couldn’t find how to do it. Erase just re-created it (but 1.0GB rather than 1.5). I copied the stuff back (the Personal2016.gnucash from the Desktop version that was working). It now seems to be working. So I guess somehow that img got corrupted with all my copying and deleting yesterday.

Thanks for the help.


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