[GNC] Gnucash fails to run after upgrade from Ubuntu 14.04 to 16.04

[Geert Janssens]

Op donderdag 8 augustus 2019 08:41:33 CEST schreef James E:
> I  used to run  Gnucash 2.6.12  in Ubuntu 14.04 .
> 
> I upgraded  to Ubuntu 16.04    . During the upgrade  I was asked if I wanted
> to keep several Gnucash   files/piece of information – one of which was 
> the Alpha Advantage API key .  I replied that I did .
> 
> The upgrade appeared to have finished successfully  . All of the
> programmes/applications worked   but  with  one exception – Gnucash.
> 
> The Gnucash loading screen and the tip of the day showed  up for a several
> seconds
> and both disappeared  again.
> 
> I  then decided to install  Gnucash  from the  Ubuntu Software centre –
> hoping that this would be compatible with 16.04   . So I removed the
> existing  Gnucash  using the Ubuntu Software centre and installed Gnucash  .
> 
> This failed  in the same way - the Gnucash loading screen and the tip of the
> day showed up for a several seconds  and both disappeared again.
> 
> I found from research that Ubuntu repositories usually contain a version of
> Gnucash that is a release or two behind the latest stable version and  that
> Gnucash 2.6.12 is included in Ubuntu 16.04 –  this is the  same Gnucash
> version as I was using   in Ubuntu  14.04 .
> 
> 
> I give below  the terminal output  when I tried to run Gnucash :
> 
> jm at jm-OptiPlex-9020:~$ gnucash
> ;;; note: auto-compilation is enabled, set GUILE_AUTO_COMPILE=0
> ;;;       or pass the --no-auto-compile argument to disable.
> ;;; compiling /usr/share/gnucash/scm/gnucash/business-gnome.scm
> ;;; compiling /usr/share/gnucash/scm/gnucash/report/business-reports.scm
> ;;; WARNING: compilation of
> /usr/share/gnucash/scm/gnucash/report/business-reports.scm failed:
> ;;; ERROR: In procedure #<procedure 5611372c8120 ()>: Unbound variable:
> gnc:menuname-business-reports
> ;;; WARNING: compilation of
> /usr/share/gnucash/scm/gnucash/business-gnome.scm failed:
> ;;; ERROR: In procedure #<procedure 561136e6f180 ()>: Unbound variable:
> gnc:menuname-business-reports
> Backtrace:
> In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
>  157: 11 [catch #t #<catch-closure 561135f66c00> ...]
> In unknown file:
>    ?: 10 [apply-smob/1 #<catch-closure 561135f66c00>]
>    ?: 9 [call-with-input-string "(gnc:report-menu-setup)" ...]
> In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
> 2401: 8 [save-module-excursion #<procedure 56113692ecc0 at
> ice-9/eval-string.scm:65:9 ()>]
> In ice-9/eval-string.scm:
>   44: 7 [read-and-eval #<input: string 56113740f1a0> #:lang ...]
>   37: 6 [lp (gnc:report-menu-setup)]
> In gnucash/report/report-gnome.scm:
>  155: 5 [gnc:report-menu-setup]
> In unknown file:
>    ?: 4 [gnc-hook-run "hook_report" ()]
> In ice-9/eval.scm:
>  387: 3 [eval # #]
>  387: 2 [eval # #]
>  393: 1 [eval #<memoized gnc:menuname-business-reports> #<directory #
> 561137149870>]
> In unknown file:
>    ?: 0 [memoize-variable-access! # #]
> 
> ERROR: In procedure memoize-variable-access!:
> ERROR: Unbound variable: gnc:menuname-business-reports
> jm at jm-OptiPlex-9020:~$
> 

GnuCash is partly written in the guile language, which is a scripting language 
that supports just in time compilation of the source files. The WARNINGs above 
indicate that this is happening on your system the first time you run gnucash.

However as gnucash should have been shipped with the proper pre-compiled 
source files, this auto compilation should not have happened and is in fact 
causing issues: one of the auto compilation steps fails which is why 
everything seems to come to a halt.

So it is now a matter of figuring out why this goes wrong. Colin's questions 
may be a first step to get more details.

It would also be interesting to know which version of guile is installed on 
your system and possibly which version of guile was used to build gnucash. 
These should be the same.

Also what is the contents of
$HOME/.cache/guile/ccache/

Next, can you empty that directory and try to run gnucash again ? (It's safe 
to empty this directory, it's just a build cache for guile, you won't lose any 
data).
Does it give the same error in the trace file ?

Regards,

Geert