[GNC] GnuCash SQLite: file attachments not recognized across platforms.

[tarik semrade]

Hello Jim,

Let me explain in more detail. On my Windows machine, I wanted to 
upgrade to the latest release version, maybe 5.14 and not 5.15.

When I installed this version, the SQLite file would not open because it 
was using the old folder in |%APPDATA%| that had been created by the old 
version (5.5).

When I removed (or renamed) this folder and let the new version create 
its own folder, the SQLite file finally opened. However, some characters 
in the accounts appeared incorrectly, such as “,” because I use the 
French version.

It looks like an encoding issue.

I don’t know how to fix this or how to make both my GnuCash applications 
on Linux and Windows use the same encoding. After this experience, I 
went back to the old version, restored the old |%APPDATA%| folder, and 
everything was fixed naturally.

That being said, the second issue I mentioned is the path problem:

I want to use an absolute path so that attached files can be opened on 
both Linux and Windows.

I know that the path separator is not the same character on Linux and 
Windows. For now, I only manage attached invoices on my Windows machine, 
and this has been done from the beginning using an absolute path.

I have remote access to this machine, so using relative paths would also 
be fine. I think GnuCash may not handle the Windows path separator 
correctly, because on my Linux machine I looked at a path stored by my 
Windows machine and the “/” was replaced by “_”, which cannot work anyway.

The idea is that if I clone my repository on a Windows machine, the 
files can be found easily. If it also works on Linux, that would be a plus.

I think my first post was not clear. I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

Regards,

Tarik

Le 28/12/2025 à 22:23, Jim DeLaHunt a écrit :
>
> Hello, Tarik:
>
> Welcome to GnuCash. I hope you will be able to get useful help on this 
> list.
>
> On 2025-12-28 08:31, tarik semrade wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am a GnuCash user and I use GnuCash on two machines: Linux and 
>> Windows.
>>
>> I switched to the SQLite file format in order to use a Python library 
>> and be able to test and parse the SQLite database.
>>
>> One issue I am facing concerns the use of *absolute paths on 
>> Windows*. When I started using GnuCash on Windows, I attached files 
>> using absolute paths. After some time, I realized that Windows paths 
>> could cause problems: when I open my book on another machine, the 
>> linked files are not recognized.
>>
>> For this year, after resetting all the accounts, I want to start a 
>> new year with a more flexible method, since I use GnuCash from both 
>> Linux and Windows.
>>
>> I used to use GitHub to synchronize the files. The GnuCash version on 
>> Windows is 5.5, while on my Ubuntu 25 system I use version 5.15. The 
>> book opens correctly without issues on both systems. However, one 
>> thing I tested was updating the Windows version of GnuCash to the 
>> latest release to match my Linux machine. I noticed that when I open 
>> the book with the latest Windows version, some strange characters 
>> appear. I reinstalled the 5.5 version since it works good.
>>
>> If you have any recommendations to help resolve the issue with linked 
>> file paths, I would be very grateful.
>
> I did some work on the file paths for my transaction attachments, so I 
> have some idea of how these paths work in GnuCash. I can offer hints, 
> but not a full solution.
>
> It would help if you could give examples of these "strange 
> characters". Can you give a screen of what they look like, and what 
> you expect to see if there are no "strange characters"?
>
> What originally saved the paths with these strange characters to your 
> GnuCash file?  Was it GnuCash 5.5 on Windows, and now GnuCash current 
> version shows strange characters on those same paths? Or is it just 
> paths which you saved using GnuCash on Linux which appear with strange 
> characters in GnuCash on Windows current version?
>
> I don't know if the GnuCash app makes promises that attachment paths 
> work across platforms. I do know:
>
>   * Absolute paths are unlikely to work, because the roots of absolute
>     paths are different on Windows and Linux (e.g. "C:\Users" and
>     "/usr/".  So, using relative paths to attachments is more likely
>     to work.
>   * Windows and Linux use different path separator characters ("\" and
>     "/").
>   * Windows and Linux use different character code conventions to
>     store path names (16-bit UTF-16LE and 8-bit UTF-8).
>
> It is possible that GnuCash code makes an effort to smooth over these 
> differences. It is also possible that it makes no particular effort. 
> If you are comfortable reading software source code, you could read 
> the GnuCash source code to try and find out.
>
> I hope this helps you take some steps forward. Best regards,
>     —Jim DeLaHunt
>
>