[GNC] Start up after shut down

David Cousens davidcousens at bigpond.com
Sun Apr 14 22:56:36 EDT 2019


Richard

Assuming you are using the XML format files the following link explains the
backup and log files ( and Lock file) that may be created in your directory.
It is usually a good practice to create the GnuCash file in its own
directory so that these files do not get mixed up with other files on your
system.

https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-guide/basics-backup1.html.

As you can see any file with a date-timestamp attached to the file extension
is either a backup or a log file. These can be used to recover your main
file if the main file is ever corrupted. You should not open any of these
fines normally as you will lose any transactions entered since the backup
file you opened was created. A common problem people have is accidentally
opening a backup file instead of the main file. In this case you will see
backup files with two sets of dataestamps in the file extensions.  

The file you should open on a daily basis will be called <filename>.gnucash
where <filename> is the name you gave it when you created the file, without
any date stamps and is the file that GnuCash will open by default if it is
the last file used. If GnuCash doesn't open with the file you want to use
(the filename without the path appears in the title bar of the main window
when it opens. If this is not correct use the File->Open dialog to navigate
to the correct file. You can drag the dialog boundaries to expand it and
then drag the bar that appears in the column headers to expand the filename
colum width so you can see the file extensions clearly.  At this point, for
safety, you should make a separate backup copy of the folder containg the
gnucash data files that you can restore and start from scratch if you have
any problems with the following instructions.

If you have opened a backup file at some point and you are able to determine
the last file opened (In your file manager set it up to see the Date
Accessed information. This should allow you to find the most recently opened
file.) If your <filename>.gnucash file has the Date Accessed information as
the timestamp in the most recent backup file then it is more than likely the
last file you opened in GnuCash and you should be able to use it.  

If it was a backup file that is the most recently opened file, then you will
need to open it and check that it has any recently loaded transactions in
it.  If so, you can rename it as <filename>.gnucash (you will  need to
rename the original file to <filename>.gnucash.old before doing this. Once
you are satisfied that the renamed <filename.gnucash> is correct and has all
your data in it, I would move all the existing backup and log files to
another directory apart from your main <filename>.gnucash. When you are
happy that GnuCash is functioning correctly you will de able to delete this
directory but you should retain it until you are really sure you have fixed
any problems.

David Cousens




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David Cousens
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