[GNC] "No suitable backend" message trying to open an alias to a gnucash file

[John Ralls]

> On Apr 26, 2021, at 2:00 PM, Michael Hendry <hendry.michael at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I’m using GC 4.4 on iMac, running OS X Catalina.
> 
> I want to place a book (say “BookA.gnucash”) in a Dropbox folder so that a deputy can take over in the event of my not being available at short notice.
> 
> Dropbox now requires original files, not aliases, in the Dropbox directory, so I can’t keep my books in ~/Documents/Accounts and provide links.
> 
> In any case, Apple seems to have broken the command-line tool “ln”, so I can’t use that mechanism.
> 
> Finder offers a means of creating an alias via right-clicking on a filename, so I tried putting BookA.gnucash in ~/Dropbox, and placing an alias called BookA.gnucash in ~/Documents/Accounts, but when I try to open BookA via the alias I get the “No suitable backend” message.
> 
> I’ve found this technique works OK for a simple text file, edited with MacVim.
> 
> A cron job that copied the current version of BookA.gnucash to Dropbox on a regular basis and as part of the shutdown sequence should work, but I haven’t tried it yet.
> 
> Any other suggestions?

Michael,

Both `ln` to make a hard link and `ln -s` to make a symlink work for me (macOS 11.3 Beta (20E5217a)) and GnuCash 4.5 is able to open either of them.

You're right that GnuCash doesn't know what to do with a Finder alias file.

You could of course use your GnuCash file directly from ~/Dropbox.

Regards,
John Ralls