[GNC] Scary moment

[R Losey]

Well, before, if I ran the GnuCash GUI with it open on another machine, it
tells me that the file is locked. I don't override the lock unless I know
that the machine or GnuCash crashed.  I have caught myself a handful of
times over the last seven years, so it is possible, especially if the
gnucash-cli option doesn't check for the lock file. I'm not sure what would
happen, however, if I did have the file open... with a seven-minute
auto-save, I'd have to really be working hard to run an update before the
autosave kicked in.

On Sat, Dec 31, 2022 at 3:11 PM Robert Kesterson <robertk at robertk.com>
wrote:

> Maybe it has been asked already, but with the file being accessed from
> three separate machines, by a gui and by a CLI utility, are you sure it
> wasn’t open on two machine at once?  That would explain everything if one
> machine made the changes, but another machine (which didn’t have the
> changes) saved its copy of the file.
>
> > On Dec 31, 2022, at 11:52 AM, Adrien Monteleone <
> adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:
> >
> > Not boring. Well detailed, thanks!
> >
> > It looks like that rules out file-access issues.
> >
> > Okay, last gasp here:
> >
> > For safety, I'd make 2 copies for testing.
> >
> > 1. Update prices via GUI rather than CLI. Check if transactions
> disappear. Exit, reopen, check again. Since you were running the CLI update
> on Linux, perhaps I'd test that first.
> >
> > 2. On a second copy, do the CLI update again. Check for missing
> transactions. If so, you'd know this is repeatable.
> >
> > If Both #1 & #2 corrupt data, then the issue is in the price update code.
> >
> > If just #2, then it is something in gnucash-cli but not the GUI.
> >
> > As I understand it, gnucash-cli is just a different interface to the
> same code the GUI uses, but since there is not yet clear MVC separation,
> there could be significant differences.
> >
> > I'm sure someone else is using gnucash-cli for price updates. It is
> curious that no one else has noticed, or is getting, data corruption.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Adrien
> >
> >> On 12/31/22 11:27 AM, R Losey wrote:
> >> 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.
> >
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-- 
_________________________________
Richard Losey
rlosey at gmail.com
Micah 6:8