[GNC] Difficulty with online price retrieval (John Ralls)

[Samantha Payn]

   Thank you for your response, John, and I am sorry for the long delay
   but I have had an avalanche of work to do.

   My problem is that when I go to post an invoice the "fetch rate" button
   is greyed out so I cannot use the online currency rate retrieval that I
   used to be able to before I upgraded my hardware.

   After installing the current version of gnucash on my new PC, I clicked
   on "Install Online Price Retrieval" from the Gnucash list in my start
   menu and I have entered the Alfa Vantage API key in my gnucash
   preferences.

   I have checked for the presence of the perl software using the
   Troubleshooting method you directed me to and received the response
   that I should install the Finance::Quote. The only way I have done this
   in the past is by clicking on "Install Online Price Retrieval" from the
   Gnucash list in my start menu and this is what I have done several
   times now. So I have done this again and after a run of code in the cmd
   window the final lines are:

   "C:\Strawberry\perl\bin\perl.exe" -MExtUtils::Command -e cp - -
   examples/dm_zdump blib\script\dm_zdump pl2bat.bat blib\script\dm_dump
   SBECK/Date-Manip-6.82.tar.gz
   C:\STRAWB~1\c\bin\gmake.exe - -OK

   When I look in the Windows list of apps installed it says I have
   installed Strawberry Perl on 3rd July (when I first tried installing it
   on my new PC).

   I am running the latest version of Gnucash and I find that in the help
   window it says

   "Version: 4.0
   Build ID: 4.0+(2020-06-27)
   Finance::Quote: -"

   Please let me know what other information you need in order to be able
   to help me. I am stepping way out of my comfort zone when I enter the
   cmd window but willing to give it a go.

   Best regards

   Samantha

   On 16 July 2020 18:14 John Ralls < [1]jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:

   Samantha,

   Have you tried price retrieval from the command line as explained in
   [2]https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes#Trouble_Shooting? Does
   that work?

   You haven't actually told us exactly what doesn't work. Please
   elaborate.

   Note that trading accounts has nothing to do with it, nor do previously
   created prices. Note that while rates used for transactions are
   recorded in the pricedb to ensure that there's an entry to make reports
   work properly, each foreign currency split has its own exchange rate,
   the ratio between the amount in the foreign currency and the value in
   the home currency, so the only thing you'd affect by clearing the
   pricedb is reports on past dates, especially time series reports.

   You may also enter prices manually as a temporary measure until you get
   online quotes working properly.

   Regards,

   John Ralls

   On Jul 16, 2020, at 5:08 AM, Samantha Payn <
   [3]samantha at boorertranslations.com> wrote:

   Thanks for your comments John and Eric.

   I have again reviewed the gnucash help documentation and cannot see

   where I am going wrong. In addition to having installed Online Price

   Retrieval and entered my API key, I have now also double checked that

   the "use trading accounts" option is checked which it is.

   In the price database window the currencies I use are listed. There is

   an option to delete all previous prices but I presume I don't want to

   do that as they record the currency exchange rates used for each of my

   past transactions.

   I am beginning to think I must take a backward step and use manual

   price entry ... where am I going wrong, when I used to be able to use

   the automatic option and all seems to be set up as before?

   All help gratefully received.

References

   1. mailto:jralls at ceridwen.us
   2. https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes#Trouble_Shooting
   3. mailto:samantha at boorertranslations.com