[GNC] longtime user suddenly unable to open gnucash

[sunfish62 at yahoo.com]

Can you open GnuCash without an active data file? You do this from a terminal window using the --nofile option. 

⁣David T. ​

On Aug 4, 2025, 10:47 PM, at 10:47 PM, Jacob Wegelin <jacobwegelin at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>Sherlock,
>
>Thank you for your reply.
>
>The latest backup is JAW.gnucash.20250803224255.gnucash, do I just open
>it 
>or do I first get rid of the current
>JAW.gnucash 
>and rename 
>JAW.gnucash.20250803224255.gnucash
>to that name?
>
>Jacob
>
>On 2025-08-04 Mon 19:36, Sherlock wrote:
>> Jacob,
>>
>> Have you tried opening recent backups saved of the gnucash file saved
>
>> before the issue appeared?
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Sherlock
>>
>>
>> On 8/4/25 7:19 PM, Jacob Wegelin wrote:
>>> I have been using gnucash for about 20 years on macos for personal
>>> bookkeeping.
>>> Suddenly today, it refuses to open with the following message:
>>>
>>>      GnuCash could not obtain the lock for /Users/qg/u/Household/ 
>>> GnuCash/wip/JAW.gnucash (which is my file which it also opens).
>>>
>>>      The database may be in use by another user, in which case you 
>>> should not open the database.  What would you like to do?
>>> 
>>> When I clicked "open anyway," the application looked like it was
>loading
>>> and then it went away---the application was not open.
>>> 
>>> I tried deleting gnucash.LCK and it just made another one.
>>> 
>>> I reinstalled gnucash, updated my macos and rebooted the computer.
>>> 
>>> I changed the permissions on JAW.gnucash so it is readable and
>>> writeable by everybody. Exactly the same message.
>>> 
>>> I tried reinstalling it again after the macos reboot, as follows:
>>> 
>>> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Installation
>>> 
>>>
>https://sourceforge.net/projects/gnucash/files/gnucash%20%28stable%29/
>>> click: download latest version Gnucash-Arm-5.12-1.dmg (184.3 MB)
>>> 
>>> I made gnucash.LCK read,write,execute by everybody, but the same
>result.
>>> 
>>> How do I get GnuCash working again? I use it every day.
>>> 
>>> Thank you
>>> 
>>> Jacob Wegelin
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> gnucash-user mailing list
>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>> -----
>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>>
>_______________________________________________
>gnucash-user mailing list
>gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>-----
>Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.