[GNC] Autosave question
Paul Kroitor
paul at kroitor.ca
Fri Oct 9 11:02:08 EDT 2026
The only difference between your General settings and my (correctly
working) ones are that my first two options (tip of the day and splash
screen) are off, and the autosave interval is 5 minutes rather than 10.
Very unlikely either of those would make a difference, but I guess you
could try and see.
FWIW I never save and I never close Gnucash. If the system restarts, I
just let the OS deal with the appropriate saves*. And I can't recall
EVER losing a single entered transaction over 10 years of extensive use.
Paul
* in the relatively rare event I've entered a transaction within 5
minutes prior to a shutdown, Gnucash asks me to confirm its desire to
save the file. Otherwise, it just shuts down, having already saved the
file via autosave.
On 2026-10-09 10:40 a.m., scum buster via gnucash-user wrote:
> I have been using a computer for home and work apps for probably about
> 40 years now -- I know the best practices.....but sometimes life gets
> in the way and an app stays open while I step away and get sidetracked
> etc....disconnecting it every time from the network isnt gonna
> happen.....honestly, I also have no idea why MS keeps "updating" when
> they clesarly said "you PC is no longer going to recieve
> updates"...but thats a different gripe for a different day. LOL
>
> I do NOT have the "prompt me" box checked as I said but DO have the
> "autosave" feature turned on. Attached a screenshot of that.
>
> The error only happens when I inadvertently do not manually save and
> leave the app running when Microsoft does an unanticipated forced
> update so it is random.....will post again next time it happens.
>
> Thanks for the input all
>
> D
>
>
>
> On 10/4/2026 10:01 AM, Kalpesh Patel wrote:
>>
>> Attach a screen grab of your current settings (along with type and
>> version of the OS, and version of gnc) for auto save as that seems to
>> be incorrectly set. This will allow folks here to weigh in.
>>
>> From what you are saying, it seems like you have done the opposite of
>> what is required to auto-save.
>>
>> The main pertinent setting I can see (others can keep me honest here)
>> is “Show auto-save confirmation question.” and if you “checked” that
>> then it is doing exactly as it says – its prompting you to save; not
>> automagically save. Secondary important settings for auto-save are
>> the “Auto-save time interval” which should be set reasonable (I keep
>> it at 5 mins) and “Retain log/backup files” which should be set
>> reasonable as well (I keep it at 10 days) but this will consume more
>> disk space. None of these time intervals should be less than one if
>> you want them to be effective.
>>
>> If you have checked “Enable timeout on ‘Save changes on exit’
>> question” set to value greater than 1 then it is waiting that many
>> seconds with a prompt when quitting the program (which is what
>> Windows reboot will do – graceful shutdown of the application before
>> killing the process) before it will exit **without** saving if you
>> don’t respond within that time period. This is what your system seems
>> to be configured for doing.
>>
>> Also if you know that M$ is installing updates in the background
>> without your knowledge, you can either run the computer off the
>> network (by pulling the cord out from the network card) and prevent
>> that or why leave any application open and running without saving
>> anything when you know that for fact? I get that some of the
>> commercial apps (such as M$ Office) have ability to pick up from
>> where you left off after reboot but that is not true of the entire
>> universe of apps. You are looking to invite trouble if you are doing
>> that as it is not the best practice to leave any app open with data
>> files still in use.
>>
>> *From:*scum buster <scumbuster at comcast.net>
>> *Sent:* Saturday, October 03, 2026 6:37 PM
>> *To:* Kalpesh Patel <kalpesh.patel at usa.net>; 'Clint Chaplin'
>> <joatmon at gmail.com>
>> *Cc:* 'Robert Heller' <heller at deepsoft.com>; 'David T.'
>> <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> *Subject:* Re: [GNC] Autosave question
>>
>> It has NEVER prompted me to save.......I have that popup turned off
>> in the setting. I have the "autosave" option checked.
>>
>> On 10/2/2026 8:41 PM, Kalpesh Patel wrote:
>>
>> If it pops up and you don’t take any action to save then all those
>> transactions accumulated since last save will stay pending to be
>> saved; you’ll have to click on File àSave to persist them on to
>> the disk at your choosing. This would be also the case for when it
>> is shutting down because the shutdown process will kill the
>> process without saving. If you are automagically looking for the
>> system to press yes for that prompt when you asked for it to
>> prompt you then it is not going to do it for you. That dialogue is
>> for you to take the action; not for the system.
>>
>> Understand the ramifications of not setting up to automatically
>> save and have it prompt to you for saving it very thoroughly.
>> While option is there to prompt for save, it makes little sense in
>> normal use case by a laymen to not automatically save all the time
>> at certain interval rather than prompt for it.
>>
>> Knowing how GNC behaves, when you said “One of the options was to
>> save this time, one was to sautomagically save all the time
>> without asking, etc. I still have it pop up.” that is likely that
>> the setting you select during that pop up it is only good going
>> forward for that session of the GNC run and not saved persistently
>> to the disk. Once you exit and relaunch, it will re-read setting
>> from the disk and return back to prompting unless you go into Edit
>> àPreferences àGeneral and setup auto-save settings. If you uncheck
>> ‘Show auto-save confirmation question’ in there, it will always
>> save at that interval without prompting (auto save does **not**
>> overwrite existing file; it creates a new file with a timestamp in
>> the name of the file). Right underneath is also setting to timeout
>> display of that “save now” pop-up so if you do not act within that
>> allotted prompt time and system ends up dismissing it due to time
>> out then it won’t save and all changes accumulated since last save
>> will be pending to be saved as well.
>>
>> HTH.
>>
>> *From:*Clint Chaplin <joatmon at gmail.com> <mailto:joatmon at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Friday, October 02, 2026 8:05 PM
>> *To:* Kalpesh Patel <kalpesh.patel at usa.net>
>> <mailto:kalpesh.patel at usa.net>
>> *Cc:* scum buster <scumbuster at comcast.net>
>> <mailto:scumbuster at comcast.net>; Robert Heller
>> <heller at deepsoft.com> <mailto:heller at deepsoft.com>; David T.
>> <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> <mailto:sunfish62 at yahoo.com>;
>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> *Subject:* Re: [GNC] Autosave question
>>
>> One other possibility; the default setup on my windows
>> installation was to pop up a window when autosave was triggered to
>> ask the user what to do. One of the options was to save this
>> time, one was to sautomagically save all the time without asking,
>> etc. I still have it pop up. If that option is enabled, what
>> happens when shut down?
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 2, 2026 at 4:56 PM Kalpesh Patel
>> <kalpesh.patel at usa.net> wrote:
>>
>> That sounds like your backend storage might be the cloud
>> storage or you
>> have very old drive that is not flushing cache before powering
>> down.
>> Assuming it is Intel pc, make sure BIOS settings for hard
>> drive is set to
>> AHCI mode and set it as removable or hot swappable drive type
>> which should
>> force it to flush cache upon power down command is sent to it.
>>
>> -----
>> Excuse the typos. It's the mobile thingy!
>>
>>
>>
>> On October 2, 2026 6:59:05 PM scum buster
>> <scumbuster at comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > I have it set to autosave and apparantly it ISNT
>> autosaving.....its not
>> > just one transaction that gets lost...its a bunch, which
>> were done
>> > during my last session (if I did not manually save it).
>> >
>> > On 10/1/2026 5:56 PM, Kalpesh Patel wrote:
>> >> I have the pre-build binaries of the 4.14 version running
>> on Windows and it
>> >> auto saves as well. If anything it would only be the
>> current in-flight
>> >> transaction not saved.
>> >>
>> >> -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>
>> >> Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2026 2:29 PM
>> >> To: David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
>> >> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org; David Carlson
>> <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>; ?
>> >> scum buster <scumbuster at comcast.net>
>> >> Subject: Re: [GNC] Autosave question
>> >>
>> >> I'm still using a built-from-source 4.14, and the auto-save
>> does in fact
>> >> save the file.
>> >>
>> >> At Thu, 01 Oct 2026 21:42:17 +0530 "David T."
>> <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> I don't use this feature, but the documentation very
>> clearly states:
>> >>>
>> >>> "Auto-save time interval: This field sets the number of
>> minutes between
>> >> each automatic saving of the file. Set to 0 to disable the
>> auto-save
>> >> feature."
>> >>> This (and the name of the preference) would strongly
>> suggest that the
>> >> feature is supposed to, ahem, *save* the file in question,
>> and not just toss
>> >> up a reminder.
>> >>> But, I'm sure I've misread things.
>> >>>
>> >>> David T.
>> >>>
>> >>> On October 1, 2026 8:50:27 PM GMT+05:30, David Carlson
>> >> <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>> iirc, auto save is only a reminder, not an action.
>> However, you
>> >>>> should be able to import transactions entered after the
>> last manual
>> >>>> save using the replay logs feature.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Thu, Oct 1, 2026 at 7:56C"B
>> >
>> > --
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>> software.
>> > www.avast.com <http://www.avast.com>
>>
>>
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>> --
>> Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin
>>
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