[GNC] Reconciliation of accounts is not permanent

[Mark Truelove]

Hi all, I just joined the list. I thought I'd give this a try before moving
to a bug report, because I can't believe this happens to me and no one else
has experienced it.  I did try searching list history as suggested with
google, but didn't find anything referring to this specifically.

Also, this is not the first time experiencing this phenomenon, probably the
third.

I use gnucash for personal finances, so I have a checking or cash account
and a number of credit card accounts.  All of these are reconciled several
times a year as I receive statements, although not always on time every
month.  However I don't go three months without catching up on all my
accounts in any case.

Today (and on previous occasions), I started my periodic reconciliations
because I had statement notifications in email.  I opened my credit card to
reconcile and had the month's statement in a browser window.  At first I
was unable to match the "beginning of month" figures to fill out the small
prompt window when reconciling.  After a few glances I realized that it was
trying to match the beginning balance to September of LAST YEAR instead of
last month.  I have reconciled this account to its statements 9 or10 times
in the last year, including last month.

In previous months, I reconciled this account and saved it normally, and
that information was retained for the following months' reconciliations.
Now when it forgets, it is losing/ignoring several months of previous
reconciliations, but not all of them (since this account is at least 20
years old).  When I checked them all, it has forgotten reconciliation data
for three other accounts as well (while another six accounts in the same
file are fully up-to date).

I have backups of my files, both through GC's own backup system and my own
rotating backups.  Loss of data files is not an issue here.  This got me
thinking, and I went back and reloaded some of these backup files
directly.  When loaded, they are all missing the same information as my
current file.

So, one could say, user error - he actually didn't reconcile for months,
and the files show that.  Unfortunately, I DID reconcile all of these
accounts, and the program is treating some aspect of the data as if it
doesn't exist beyond that point, regardless of the source file.

I'm a retired IT pro, an IT Manager and other roles over 40 years.  I know
how this looks at first glance.  If this hadn't happened to me twice
previously I wouldn't be taking the time to report this in detail today.

I'm currently running v5.3.  I downloaded 5.4 but haven't upgraded yet bc I
didn't want to compound the problem.  If this is a known issue and 5.4
fixes it, then great, I'll just upgrade.

I hope this scenario seems familiar to one of the users out there.

__________________________________________________

*Mark Truelove*true911m at gmail.com