Hello, Griffin, and welcome to GnuCash.
Thank you for providing screen excerpts in your previous message. That
helps me understand. Maybe I can give you some insight. See my replies
interleaved below.
On 2024-11-02 07:49, Griffin wrote:
On 2024-10-30 2:56 p.m., Griffin wrote:
Hi,
I am trying...
OK, before you go any further.
What version of GnuCash are you running, and on what operating system?
(I'm going to guess Windows, but please tell us explicitly.) Different
versions of GnuCash behave differently. This basic information is important.
...to reconcile accounts that have got way behind. They are stock
(options) trades that might have been entered before I understood how
trading accounts should be setup.
When I view the register for the account, I notice some of the
records display a box with a square in it, in the top left corner of
both the deposit and the Withdrawal field....
What is the Account Type of this account? I am guessing it is Stock or
Mutual Fund. See
<https://gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/acct-types.html> for a
list of account types. The registers for different account types
behave differently.
What is happening in the transaction you are showing us? I suspect it
is a sale of a stock "NCLH" for Canadian Dollars, but it might be a
purchase.
What I see in your screen excerpt "Transaction split.jpg" is that each
cell in the credit and debit columns have a small shape drawn with thin
black lines, forming a square having diagonals drawn that form an "X".
This shape appears in every row, whether the background colour is green,
light beige, or vivid yellow. This excerpt shows a transaction — a
stock sale or purchase — containing one split in CAD currency and one
split in NCLH stock. This transaction is not balanced (see below).
Another of your screen excerpts, "After Rebalance.jpg", does not have
these small shapes in the debit and credit columns.
I speculate that these small squares are an artifact of the technology
going wrong — maybe in a small way, maybe large. They might be a place
where GnuCash can draw indicators of some kind. Perhaps the indicators
have to do with the transaction not being balanced. The drawing is not
working right, and so you see these squares. If you care to take the
time to describe this situation clearly, you might consider filing a bug
report about it. See <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Bugzilla> to get
started with a bug report.
For now, I suggest you treat the small squares as a separate issue from
your other questions.
....When I tab through the deposit and the withdrawal fields as the
focus leaves the withdrawal field, a dialog pops saying the
transaction needs to be rebalanced.
The transaction split looks like this. You can see the box with a
cross in it
As I don't know what needs to be balanced I click on "Let GnuCash add
an adjusting split", and I click <Rebalance>.
The transaction split, then looks like this.
Next, let's look at the issue of "balanced transactions". You say you
set up this book without Trading Accounts, entered some transactions,
then turned on Trading Accounts. You might be seeing GnuCash attempting
to clean up the older transactions so that they become correct with
Trading Accounts.
Three basic things to know:
1. A balanced transaction is where the sum of all the debits equals the
sum of all the credits. If a transaction involves multiple currencies,
then these sums are calculated separately for each currency.
2. GnuCash uses the same mechanisms for representing currencies and
securities in the book. Thus your transaction involves the CAD currency
and the NCLH "currency".
3. When a transaction is not balanced in one of its currencies, GnuCash
inserts a split using Trading Accounts with whatever debit or credit
amount brings that currency into balance for that transaction. For more
on Trading Accounts, see
<https://gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/currency_trading_accts.html>.
What I see in "Transaction split.png" is a transaction which is not
balanced. There is one split for 120.30 CAD, and another split for 5
NCLH. I can imagine that GnuCash accepted this transaction before you
turned on Trading Accounts, and will not accept it after. What I see in
"After Rebalance.png" is a transaction which is now balanced, via one
split using a trading account in CAD and a second split using a trading
account in NCLH.
Thus I think this sequence sounds like GnuCash dealing correctly with a
transaction which is no longer acceptable given your Trading Accounts
setting. To a first approximation, it is separate from the mysterious
square shapes, or the crash. It is not a problem to be solved.
As I move onto the next transaction, and follow the exact same steps,
after clicking on <Rebalance>, there is a pause of 1 to 2 seconds,
following which GnuCash silently crashes.
This is a separate issue. GnuCash should not not crash. When it does,
you have three options:
1. Find a way to work around the crash.
2. Upgrade to a newer version of GnuCash, if any, which fixes the
problem that caused the crash.
3. File a carefully described bug report, to help the developers fix the
problem.
As far as a workaround, my first suggestion is to check and repair all
your accounts. From the Accounts list, select menu item Actions… Check &
Repair… Check & Repair all . This tells GnuCash to go over each
transaction and fix those which are badly structured. I suspect it won't
balance the unbalanced transactions, but it might correct some
corruption in your book which encourages GnuCash to crash.
Next, it sounds like the crash happens when you rebalance a second
transaction. If that is the case, you might try opening one unbalanced
transaction, rebalancing it, then saving the file, before you attempt to
rebalance a second transaction. If you still get a crash, then rebalance
one transaction, quit GnuCash, and restart GnuCash. Yes, workarounds
like this are tedious. But once you balance the transactions, you won't
have to do it again.
When I reopen GnuCash I am presented with cannot get a lock popup
I can delete the file 2024 Accounts.gnucash.LCK to restart GnuCash.
This is yet a separate issue. It is normal GnuCash behaviour when
starting after a crash. GnuCash makes a .LCK file when it has a book
file open, to make it less likely that someone will use a second copy of
GnuCash to open the same book file. Normally, GnuCash deletes the .LCK
file when it exits normally. When GnuCash crashes, the .LCK file
remains. GnuCash puts up a dialogue to warn you that someone else might
be using the book file. One of the options is "Open anyway". If you
know that the .LCK file comes from your previous use of that file, and
it is there because GnuCash crashed, then select that option. GnuCash
will open your book file, and you can resume work.
So, the "lock popup" and the .LCK file are a consequence of the crash
problem, but they are not a part of the crash problem.
Does that help?
Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt
Nothing has been changed of course, and there was no time to save
anything. Some times Even the first try ends abnormally.
Any ideas, anyone, Bueller… anyone?
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@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.
