[GNC] Scary moment

[R Losey]

My data file is stored on a NAS device (with redundant disks). I've been
using GnuCash for seven years now, and have always kept it on the NAS and
have had no issues like this before.

My machines are three separate physical machines (I have an recent iMac, a
Windows 10 machine, and an older machine that runs Ubuntu). None of these
are VMs.

I never double-click on a file; I always start the GnuCash GUI and it
always loads the last file; I've been doing this for years, and it is the
only GnuCash file I have, so I'm absolutely certain that I am using the
same file.

I've never seen such a thing before, so I'm also very skeptical that the
gnucash-cli stock update script would erase register transactions.

To recap, here is a timeline {with comments}
*Fri*: Did the regular financial data-entry.  After finishing, I realized
that I forget to write a couple of checks to charities, so I wrote the
checks. {I believe that I also entered this into GnuCash, but it is
possible I forgot and would just pick it up next week; this doesn't tally
with notes I have in the checkbook and my own memory, but it is certainly
possible. If I did enter it at this time, it was on the iMac}

later (late Fri or Sat) Ran the gnucash-cli command to update stock quotes
on Linux - no errors

*Mon*: Ran stock quote update {and then felt foolish as I realized the
markets were closed Monday.} Discovered that it only fetches current data,
and should be run daily to get daily quotes.

*Tue*: Ran stock quote update (Linux)

Wed morning: Thought I'd update the Finance::Quote to 1.54 (I was running
1.52). In case I had problems, I ran an update using 1.52. First update
failed because, while I had a C compiler installed (gcc), I did not have
make (gmake). Installed make, and the update worked. Ran another stock
update command and verified it is using 1.54

*Wed afternoon*: Did a preliminary check of where I stand with taxes. Ran
my YTD transaction report to get info. Noticed it stopped at the end of the
previous month. Changed config to end at end of current year. Re-ran
report. Started entering in data; noticed that charity checks from Friday
were missing. Assumed that I neglected to enter them, so I entered them.
Re-ran the report; they are showing up.

*Wed evening*: Ran stock update. Modified the gnc-fq-update perl script to
check for the existence of /usr/bin/make if running on Linux.

*Thu night*: ran stock update

*Friday morning*. Brought up GnuCash (Windows) to do regular data entry,
and noticed that the charity checks are missing again. Wondered if I was
somehow on an old data file. Looked at the directory where files are
stored; sorted by last modified - no indication of a second file, and the
GUI only has my standard file in the MRU list in the "File" Menu. Shut down
Windows GnuCash; went to iMac, brought up Gnucash - still missing, and the
automated entry made on the windows machine showed up, so they are pointing
to the same file. Ran the transaction report, and the data that was there
Wed was gone. Troubled, and thought about what could be different. Realized
that I have been running the stock update program, and decided to not run
it. Re-entered the charity checks, used the transaction report to verify it
was present; double-checked the balance to verify that I hadn't somehow
double-entered them. Shut down; back to Windows GnuCash: the checks are
there.


I've not run the stock update program since Thursday night, and I've not
seen anything go missing. I find it hard to believe that it somehow messed
around with the registers. I know that the GUI looks for the existence of
the lock file, so that one gets a warning if the same data file is accessed
at the same time. I don't know if the stock price update script has this
check. If it doesn't, I thought that perhaps I ran an update with Gnucash
up, and it overwrote the data. But that means that it was have to be before
the auto-save kicked in (7 minutes on the Mac), and I'm just not sure that
that was long enough.

I brought up the GnuCash GUI on Linux; it is at 4.8 (and, late Fri night, I
verified that the charity checks showed up there as well).

So, there is a long, boring description of stuff.

On Fri, Dec 30, 2022 at 11:31 PM Adrien Monteleone <
adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:

> Where is your data file?
>
> Are you using 3 separate physical machines, or are some of these VMs?
>
> If you've done various finds, reports, and other searches to eliminate
> data-entry error possibilities, and since this has happened more than
> once to the same data, I'm inclined to hazard one more guess:
>
> file-access issues
>
> Are you absolutely certain, when you are in a file showing the
> transactions 'missing' that you are indeed in the *exact* same file as
> when you put them in?
>
> How do you know you are in the same file?
>
> I'm not saying that gnucash-cli does not have a nasty bug, but I'm
> skeptical that a stock price update would be affecting any registers,
> much less non-stock registers.
>
> Regards,
> Adrien
>
> On 12/30/22 7:31 PM, R Losey wrote:
> > Versions are a little confusing.... Mac was running 4.12 until today; I
> am
> > now on the current version.
> >
> > I updated the Windows version earlier this week.
> >
> > Linux GnuCash is older (4.<something>), but I don't run the GUI there -
> > usually just the gnucash-cli stock updates, which I updated on Thursday
> > from whatever it was.
> >
> > For now, I'm going to avoid running the gnucash-cli updates... I only
> > caught the missing checks because of the tax work I was doing; I'm rather
> > scared about what else may have been lost.
> >
> > Also, I've closed and re-opened GnuCush on both Windows and Mac multiple
> > times, and the transactions are there, like I expect (but I haven't run
> the
> > stock price update)
>
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-- 
_________________________________
Richard Losey
rlosey at gmail.com
Micah 6:8