[GNC] Can't open old GnuCash file

[gnucash at 4forl1st5.slmail.me]

On Friday, February 16th, 2024 at 09:00, MegaBrutal <megabrutal at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
> Hello,
> 
> I've been using GnuCash between 2015 to 2017 to help to straighten out
> my personal finances. ...
> 
> Now I got a situation that I'm looking for certain transactions from
> around that time and I remembered that I should check my old GnuCash
> file, untouched since 2017-09-21. To my shock, the modern GnuCash
> version that comes with my distro (Ubuntu 23.10) crashes when I try to
> open my old file. ...

If I am reading the Git logs correctly, then Release 2.6.18 came out
one day after you last saved your file, and there were three more
2.6 releases to come after that.

It will definitely be worth your while to try opening the file with
a version 3, saving that if you can open it, and opening the new file 
with a v4, then saving that and opening that one with a v5.

There will have been some changes to the underlying file format, since 
the 2.6 series, but as to whether such changes are the exact cause of 
what you are seeing, you going to have to try out older versions to 
narrow things down.

Of course, if you only want to look at certain transactions from
before Sep 2017, then opening your file with a 2.6 series Gnucash
would be the way to go.

If you find that you can't even open your file with a v2, then a 
possibly corrupted file may be the root cause of what's happening.