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

[Michael Hendry]

> On 27 Apr 2021, at 00:57, John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> 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.

On my late-2012 iMac 27 inch, “ln” appears to work at first, making an up-to-date copy of the source file in the destination directory, but subsequent changes in the source file aren’t reflected in the destination. Can you confirm that this has been fixed in 11.3?

If so, it looks like time for me to upgrade to Big Sur - have you had any issues with the Beta version?

> 
> 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.

I was hoping to avoid having all the backup and log files in ~/Dropbox.

Thanks,

Michael