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

[Sherlock]

Hi Tarik,

GnuCash maintains configuration settings within the %APPDATA% folder on 
Windows.  It should not have been necessary to remove/rename the folder 
to launch GnuCash 5.14 and doing so is the likely the cause of the 
"encoding issue" you experienced.  I suggest reviewing: 
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Configuration_Locations and attempting to 
reestablish the appropriate configuration for your environment.

Regards,

Sherlock


On 12/29/25 6:55 AM, tarik semrade wrote:
 > 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

On 12/29/25 7:06 AM, tarik semrade via gnucash-user wrote:
> Hello Sherlock
> 
> I have clarified the issue. You can take a look at this email:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2025-December/119000.html
> 
> Le 28/12/2025 à 21:56, Sherlock a écrit :
>> Hi Tarik,
>>
>> First off, 5.15 isn't scheduled to be released until March 29th 2026. 
>> The latest release is 5.14.
>>
>> Second, when you open your book with the latest Windows version, where 
>> do these strange characters appear?
>>
>> Regarding linked documents, I suggest using "Linked Location" as this 
>> option allows you to specify a URL that can be used to identify the 
>> file location (for example, to a shared GitHub repository).  When 
>> using "Linked File", relative paths can point to a shared file 
>> system / mount point.  If you used "absolute paths on Windows" with 
>> "Linked File", you'll only be able to directly access the file on 
>> Windows.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Sherlock
>>
>>
>> On 12/28/25 8:31 AM, 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.
>>>
>>> Tarik
>>>