My thanks to Derek Atkins for some good pointers (and thank you, too, Bert Riding). I'm not sure whether I will finally be able to digest the suggestions sufficiently.
Derek said, "On November 15 at 16:19 you made some changes to the file, which generated the log file mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161913.log and a backup file mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161913.gnucash (which does not appear in your listing, but must exist somewhere)." Maybe somewhere, but as of today, not in /Finances/mygnucash. I did a search and came up empty. I always open gnucash by clicking its icon in Applications > Office >. I use Ubuntu 16.04.) That icon has been there since I installed the program, and I don't know yet how to control what it opens. Maybe when I do the "Save to" bit, but you suggest I save that for after fixing everything else. I have dozens of normal-name .log and .gnucash files from 16 Oct to 15 Nov, then nine double-dates from 31 Dec to 09 Jan. After that, loads of files "Date Modified" 14 Jan, single-dated from 20171229 to 20180111, but out of order. Includes one simple mygnucash.gnucash. The last three on 14 Jan are double-dates, and those 20171115s continue through 19 Jan (today, although I haven't actually make any gnucash entries today). I've been reading how to restore, including the references you provided, but I won't try until I can see my way past a "warning" or two. On Thu, Jan 18, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Derek Atkins <de...@ihtfp.com> wrote: > Hi, > > On Thu, January 18, 2018 8:30 pm, Gerald Mathias wrote: > > I guess I did something dumb. I wanted to move my GnuCash to a new > > computer, so I copied over the mygnucash folder. Now the new files come > > out > > with these weird names: > > > > mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161912.gnucash.20180115171928.gnucash > > mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161912.gnucash.20180115171929.log > > mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161912.gnucash.20180116114841.log > > mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161912.gnucash.20180116115105.gnucash > > mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161912.gnucash.20180116115105.log > > mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161912.gnucash.LCK > > mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161913.log > > mygnucash.gnucash.20171229114235.log > > > > I guess November 15 is the date I did the copy. Is there any way to get > > rid > > of that part of the naming process? > > STOP RIGHT NOW. YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. > > Basically, you started with a file named mygnucash.gnucash -- your main > data file. > > On November 15 at 16:19 you made some changes to the file, which generated > the log file mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161913.log and a backup file > mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161913.gnucash (which does not appear in your > listing, but must exist somewhere). > > Then on December 29 you made another change, which resulted in the log > file mygnucash.gnucash.20171229114235.log. There should have also been an > equivalent backup file. > > THEN, on January 15 at 17:19, you made a mistake. Instead of opening your > main data file, mygnucash.gnucash, you opened the BACKUP FILE from > November 15. This resulted in the log file > mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161912.gnucash.20180115171929.log and backup > file mygnucash.gnucash.20171115161912.gnucash.20180115171928.gnucash. The > backup was clearly saved one second before the log. > > Then you used the SAME file again on Jan 16 at 11:51. > > This means you effectively forked your data. Anything you entered between > November 15 and January 15 was "lost" in the fork. It's still out there, > like the December 29 log file. > > But this all happened because you opened the wrong file -- you opened up a > backup file instead of your main data file. > > > I had also considered starting over, from 2018-01-01 on the new computer. > > Maybe that is the better option? Would simply erasing all the current > > accounts and setting them up anew do the trick? > > While that is an option, there is no need to do that. > First, you need to understand how gnucash stores logs and backup files. > See > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_What_are_all_these_. > gnucash_and_.log_files_filling_up_my_directory.3F > and > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_Why_is_my_file_name_ > getting_longer_and_longer.3F > > Once you fix your data loss problem (most likely you could do this by > replaying the log files) then you can just rename your file back to your > main data file. I recommend you just File -> Save As from within GnuCash. > > Good Luck! > > > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > > -derek > > -- > Derek Atkins 617-623-3745 > de...@ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com > Computer and Internet Security Consultant > > _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org 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.
