[GNC] Error While Saving in GnuCash 3.5 on Win7-64

Thu Apr 4 19:00:31 EDT 2019

Thanks for all the info, Ron.

I don't disagree with anything you've written, except that I've been using
spaces in folder and file names on windows computers since the late 20th
century.  The olden days are over.  I'm glad you found a work around for
naming files and folders in Linux without using spaces.

It remains that GnuCash 2.6.21 and previous versions, regularly saved a
path and file name that contained spaces and was usually around 100 chars
long.  Whereas 3.5 behaved as if it was unable to do so until the path
length was reduced substantially.  It should be capable of saving a path
more than twice as long as what I was attempting to do, if it were
compliant with window's path length specs.  That's why I reported it.  If
GnuCash is not capable of that path length or anything else WRT
construction of the path, the error message(s) it gives the user should be
appropriate to the violation.  The message I received was not.

So there are three things I'm tryna report on this.  1. GnuCash 3.5 seems
to require an abnormally short path length.  2. When I exceeded the length
I tried GnuCash presented an error message that indicated I was trying to
save to a location reserved by GnuCash (inappropriate error message).  3.
Even though the error message was inappropriate, within the message,
GnuCash tried to display the path as part of the error message, it
apparently couldn't do that.

I think this is a great program and when I find things like this I like to
report them because I feel like I'm contributing to the sw development.

What do base your doubt of the path length being the problem on?

Kind regards,

Greg Feneis <http://www.linkedin.com/in/electromechanical>

On Thu, Apr 4, 2019 at 2:51 PM Ronal B Morse <ron at morsehouse.com> wrote:

> This probably doesn't have anything to do with your issue, but I've
> never been a fan of spaces in paths/filenames.  Back in the olde days it
> wasn't allowed. I gather that's changed, but it still strikes me as bad
> juju.
>
> I'm a Linux guy and even though I guess we can use spaces we have to
> delimit them in quote marks, so it's just easier to forgo the space or
> use an underscore character as a separator instead.
>
> Windows should be able to handle file path statements of 247 (or
> thereabouts) characters. I don't thing the length of the string is the
> problem.
>
> Ron Morse
>
> On 4/4/19 2:34 PM, Greg Feneis wrote:
> > The path that 3.5 failed to write to is:
> >
> > C:\Dropbox\My Docs\Thorough C & D\GnuCash\GnuCash
> > Files\(VerboseFileNameProbably30chars.gnucash)
> >
> > The last successful saves to this directory was by GnuCash 2.6.21, and
> was:
> >
> > C:\Dropbox\My Docs\Thorough C & D\GnuCash\GnuCash
> > Files\AfterImporting2018ThroughQ4.gnucash.20190401075914.log  (4/1/2019
> > 8:01AM)
> >
> > C:\Dropbox\My Docs\Thorough C & D\GnuCash\GnuCash
> > Files\AfterImporting2018ThroughQ4.gnucash
> > (4/1/2019 7:59AM)
> >
> > Since I suspected it was a path length issue, I tried saving the file
> name
> > test.gnucash in the same location, but got the same error.  So I went one
> > folder back and tried to save again and it failed the same way.  I kept
> > shortening the path like this until it did save, which was as follows:
> >
> > C:\Dropbox\My Docs\Thorough C & D\test.gnucash
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Kind regards,
> > Greg Feneis
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 4, 2019 at 12:28 PM Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> What is the path above the section you have shown?
> >>
> >> Colin
> >>
> >> On Wed, 3 Apr 2019 at 01:46, Greg Feneis <mfeneis at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> I just upgraded to 3.5 from 2.6.21.
> >>>
> >>> I've been using 2.6.x for a few years, and never had trouble saving to
> >> this
> >>> directory, but after upgrading to 3.5, I tried to save and it gives me
> an
> >>> error message.
> >>>
> >>> "You attempted to save in "can't be displayed" or a subdirectory
> thereof.
> >>> This is not allowed as GnuCash reserves that director for internal use.
> >>>
> >>> Please try again in a different directory."  (close)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Here's a link to a screen shot of the error message:
> >>> https://www.dropbox.com/s/1opqys3wxuyw4rv/2019-04-02_17-05-34.png?dl=0
> >>>
> >>> Note that where I wrote "can't be displayed" is actually a strange
> >> graphic
> >>> like when an emoji can't be displayed.  See the screen shot.
> >>>
> >>> It appears when the error message was generated, the file path couldn't
> >> be
> >>> parsed.  This makes me think GnuCash isn't capable of parsing the save
> to
> >>> path.  I suspect it's a path length issue.  I tried shorter paths and
> it
> >>> worked.  FSR, the new GnuCash seem like it can't save to the same
> length
> >>> path that the old series was capable of.
> >>>
> >>> Sorry if this is already a known issue
> >>>
> >>> Kind regards,
> >>>
> >>> Greg Feneis <http://www.linkedin.com/in/electromechanical>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>
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