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

Fri Apr 5 16:14:40 EDT 2019

As a test on Windows 10, I made the following directory hierarchy, tried
saving and got the same error.
C:\Users\chris\Documents\My Docs\Thorough C & D\GnuCash Files

After I renamed "Thorough C & D" to "Thorough C and D", the save worked
just fine.

On Thu, Apr 4, 2019 at 4:03 PM Greg Feneis <mfeneis at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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