[GNC] Difficulty with online price retrieval

[John Ralls]

> On Jul 24, 2020, at 4:33 AM, Samantha Payn <samantha at boorertranslations.com> wrote:
> 
>   Sorry to repeat myself but can anyone help me or shall I have to rely
>   on manual input of foreign exchange rates for the foreseeable future? I
>   think that Windows has put the online price retrieval somewhere where
>   Gnucash cannot "see" it and I am not sufficiently computer literate to
>   correct this.
>   My problem is that when I go to post an invoice in a "foreign" currency
>   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 John Ralls  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. 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
>   Does this mean that online price retrieval has been installed?
>   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.

It looks like Finance::Quote is not getting installed. Try this:

Find the Strawberry Perl group in the Start menu (windows logo at the bottom left of the screen). Open it and start CPAN Client. You'll get something that looks sort of like a CMD window. At the prompt there type
  install Finance::Quote
It will probably take a while and should eventually finish with 
  Appending installation info to C:\strawberry\perl\lib/perllocal.pod
    ECOCODE/Finance-Quote-1.49.tar.gz
    C:\strawberry\c\bin\dmake.exe install UNINST=1 -- OK

If GnuCash is running restart it, after which it should report version 1.49 for Finance::Quote and light up the Get Quotes button.

Regards,
John Ralls