[GNC] How to save Gnucash and Lock file issues

[David Cousens]

Lorrie,

At some point instead of opening the main file "finances.gnucash" it would appear you have opened a backup copy of the
file, which is why it has the form "finances.gnucash.20181202.gnucash".

Each time Gnucash is opened, it copies the file "<filename>.gnucash it" has just opened and renames it
"<filename>.gnucash.<date-time stamp>.gnucash" . It also creates a logfile "<filename>.gnucash.<date-time stamp>.log"
which records the changes to the file which occur during the current session. 

When you exit or when you make changes or use the Save button in GnuCash any changes are saved to "<filename>.gnucash"
In your  case <filename>="finances.gnucash.20181202" instead of "finances.gnucash".

You can restore this to the normal situation simply by renaming the file you are currently using as the main
file, "finances.gnucash.20181202.gnucash",  as "finances.gnucash". 

See https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-guide/basics-backup1.html for a detailed explanation of this.

David Cousens


On Sun, 2018-12-02 at 10:14 -0800, Lorrie Laskey wrote:
> Hi Colin,
> 
> I understand. Since I don't really need to know the minute and seconds when
> a file is saved at this time, I will leave the file name as it is.
> 
> My next topic, for another email, is how to set up a budget. I have tried
> and watched videos and read documentation but never quite get it to work or
> understand what it is doing.
> 
> Thanks for  your help this morning.
> 
> 
> On Sun, Dec 2, 2018 at 10:10 AM Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, 2 Dec 2018 at 18:01, Lorrie Laskey <lrlaskey at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hi Colin,
> > > 
> > > The "save" option did get focus once I made a change and saved the file.
> > > 
> > > However, the file name doesn't look right. See below. It is using the
> > 
> > name that I created when I used "save as" though I used "save" but the log
> > file name looks right. What is happening? Is this a problem?
> > > 
> > > finances.gnucash.20181202.gnucash
> > > finances.gnucash.20181202.gnucash.20181202095503
> > 
> > If you used Save As to save to that file, then that file becomes the
> > current file in use so when you later use Save it will save back to
> > that file again (and that is the file that will be re-opened
> > automatically when you open Gnucash).  Again this is exactly the same
> > as will happen with MS Word for example.  Save As means "save the file
> > with this new name and then keep using the new name".  If you want to
> > give it a different name then use Save As just once to save it with
> > the name you want and thereafter Save will save back to that file.
> > 
> > Colin
> > 
> 
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