[GNC] Where does gnucash put the lock file on Linux?

[John Ralls]

Do I remember correctly that you're using the SQL backend? That works a bit differently because there's no way to have a lock file if you're connected to a DB server. Instead of a lock file it has a lock table inside the database. If you copy the database (and with SQLite3 it looks just like a file) when there's a lock record in the lock table then GnuCash will put up the "unable to obtain the lock" dialog box.

Regards,
John Ralls


> On Jan 20, 2021, at 6:24 AM, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 09:04:52AM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> On Wed, January 20, 2021 8:33 am, Chris Green wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 08:23:23AM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>> 
>>>> The lock file is created in the same directory as the data file.
>>>> Is that directory not writeable?  That would cause the error.
>>> 
>>> The directory is definitely writeable and there definitely isn't any
>>> sort of lock file in the directory:-
>>> 
>>>    chris$ cd tmp/pcc/2020
>>>    /home/chris/tmp/pcc/2020
>>>    chris$ ls
>>>    building.gnucash  building.gnucash.20210120121447.log  general.gnucash
>>>    chris$ ls -al
>>>    total 504
>>>    drwxrwxr-x 2 chris chris   4096 Jan 20 12:14 .
>>>    drwxrwxr-x 3 chris chris   4096 Jan 20 12:13 ..
>>>    -rw-r--r-- 1 chris chris 212992 Jan 20 12:14 building.gnucash
>>>    -rw-rw-r-- 1 chris chris    381 Jan 20 12:14
>>> building.gnucash.20210120121447.log
>>>    -rw-r--r-- 1 chris chris 290816 Jan 20 12:14 general.gnucash
>>>    chris$ gnucash general.gnucash
>>>    Found Finance::Quote version 1.49.
>>>    chris$
>>> 
>>> The above sequence pops up the can't create lock file error.
>> 
>> The "cannot obtain lock" error has multiple causes.  Have you checked the
>> Tracefile to see if there is anything printed that might suggest which
>> error is happening?
>> 
>> The error occurs when:
>> 1) There is a lock file already there, or
>> 2) There is NOT a lock file already present, but gnucash cannot create a
>> new lock file
>> 
>> If you're in case #2, then you won't see a lock file listed.
>> 
>> Is your disk full?  What do you get from:
>>  df /home/chris/tmp/pcc/2020
>>  df -i /home/chris/tmp/pcc/2020/
>> 
> No, my disk isn't full:-
> 
>    Filesystem     Type 1M-blocks   Used  Avail Use% Mounted on
>    /dev/nvme0n1p2 ext4     48174  13344  32315  30% /
>    /dev/nvme0n1p3 ext4    896193 308524 542077  37% /home
>    /dev/sdb1      ext4     10016    181   9307   2% /boot
>    /dev/sdb2      ext4    109596  27675  76313  27% /scratch
>    /dev/sda1      ext4    938772 225049 666014  26% /bak
> 
>> Also, what kind of filesystem underlies /home/chris/tmp/pcc/2020 ?
>> 
> Standard linux ext4 (as you can see above).
> 
> 
>>>> If GnuCash cannot create (and lock) the lock file then it will throw the
>>>> error.
>>>> If you are SURE that there is not another process running, you can "Open
>>>> Anyways" and that will clear the error.
>>>> 
>>> Yes, I realise that, but it's not "right". :-)
>> 
>> It depends on the underlying error.  If the lock file is actually there
>> but, say, gnucash crashed, then "Open Anyways" *is* the right solution.
>> Obviously that's not the case here.
>> 
> Yes, OK, there are cases where "Open anyway" is the right solution,
> but there seems to be something else going on here.
> 
> 
>>>> NB that gnucash may mix the metadata for two versions of the same-named
>>>> file located in different directories.  The GCM file does not contain
>>>> the
>>>> file location information.
>>>> 
>>> I'm not quite sure I follow that, I do have general.gnucash in two
>>> different places.  Are you saying that this may cause problems and
>>> that I should rename my 'previous year' accounts to (for example)
>>> general2020.gnucash as well as moving them to a suitably named
>>> sub-directory?
>> 
>> If you open a file foo.gnucash, gnucash creatres a metadata file
>> foo.gnucash.gcm in $HOME/.local/share/gnucash/books.  Now, if you copy
>> foo.gnucash from DIR1/foo.gnucash to DIR2/foo.gnucash, when you open
>> DIR2/foo.gnucash it will use the same foo.gnucash.gcm file, because DIR1
>> vs DIR2 is not encoded anywhere.
>> 
>> So yes, IF you decide to archive data files, you should change the name.
>> 
> OK, that makes sense, thank you.
> 
> 
>> NB: there is no need to start over every year; GnuCash hapily accounts for
>> multiple years of data and reports know how to handle that.
>> 
> That might make sense for me, I'm not quite sure.  It's not a very
> busy system so I can go for a month and see if I can then generate
> what the auditor requires for 2020.  If it all goes wrong I can undo a
> month (I have daily incremental backups).
> 
> -- 
> Chris Green
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