[GNC] (no subject)

[David Carlson]

Mario,

The GnuCash developers are not keeping any secrets about where your data is
stored.   If you read your help manual and refer to the very detailed FAQ
on the website you will find out that GnuCash stores some "user" type
information in a location separate from your data.

Your custom report settings and other settings that could apply to multiple
data sets if you have any  and seldom change after you set them up are
included.

It is not a secret location known only to Linus Pauling and a few of his
friends.

Over the years the details have evolved and they vary depending on the
operating system environment and GnuCash release schedule.

There are instructions on what is stored,  where it is stored and how to
back it up.

There are also instructions for migrating the settings from one OS to
another  should you ever need them.

I don't think they suggest a specific backup schedule,  but if you rarely
change your saved report settings,  then once a month would probably work
fine.  For me, twice a year and after I change my datakeeping habits is
fine.

On Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 12:32 PM Steve Butler <kg7je at arrl.net> wrote:

> Please plan a compressive backup strategy for your entire system.  Include
> email, Libre Office documents, other misc files and not just GnuCash.
>
> That way it won't matter where files are "hidden" as you will have a
> complete backup strategy that isn't specific to any particular application.
>
> On Tue, Feb 22, 2022, 09:51 Mario Nigrovic <jagmarz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Many years ago, I had used gnucash, and was pretty happy with it. I was
> > very careful to make regular backups of my data, and so, when my disk
> > inevitably crashed, I was not too worried. However, I was mortified to
> > discover that, although all my transaction data had been saved, all my
> > custom reports were lost, as they had been stored separately in a secret
> > undisclosed location, I later discovered to be elsewhere in my home
> > directory.
> >
> > Recently, I have decided to try again to use gnucash, but I would like
> very
> > much to ensure ALL my data is backed up. So I hit upon the idea of
> running
> > the tool under a custom value of $HOME, but I was then shocked to
> discover
> > that even with this method, gnucash was able to remember previous
> locations
> > of my database file, which suggests that the tool is also using some kind
> > of other mechanism to save historical data, and that makes me very
> nervous
> > about actually being able to do proper backups of everything related to
> the
> > tool.
> > Doing some sleuthing using strace, I was able to find the previous
> database
> > location delivered through some socket connection, and that really scares
> > me, since it is now possible critical data is stored via some other Linux
> > service and I will have no way to trace out where this may be to avoid
> > future nasty surprises.
> > I have not seen any documentation about backup strategies other than the
> > aromatic saving of previous data files, yet I do see that there was data
> > being stored at least in ~/.local, so I'm hoping someone on this list may
> > be able to point me to some more thorough discussion of ALL the places
> user
> > data from gnucash may be stored.
> > Thanks for your help!
> >
> > -- Mario
> >
> > -- Mario
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