2008-09-01 GnuCash IRC logs

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02:35:22 <datakid> hola all. I'm trying to open a gnucash file across a samba network and it's failing. Is this a known issue? I am aware that it may be an ubuntu/smb error
02:41:26 <datakid> the error I get is:
02:41:33 <datakid> Can't parse the URL /home/engage/.gnucash/data/smb:,,dangdut,em-share,finances,gnucash,07.08,gnucash_files,engage2008finyear.
02:41:48 <datakid> all those commas instead of /s is interesting
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02:51:46 <datakid> gnucash 2.2.4 and ubuntu hardy
02:51:51 <datakid> is my system
03:41:35 <datakid> ok thanks
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12:34:51 <kimmo> cheers
12:39:28 <kimmo> does 2.2.6 still have the bug in general ledger view and the general journal report that empty ghost transactions appear?
12:40:18 <kimmo> (2.2.4 has those, and I can't get my stupid vmware'd box to properly initialise network so I can't just update and test :( )
12:41:03 <jsled> It probably still has the bug, but you usually don't want to use the general ledger/journal.
12:41:59 <kimmo> no not usually, but I'd like a printed-out copy of the general journal at closing
12:42:36 <kimmo> the auditors found the reports very nice and understood that the empty transactions were the result of a bug
12:42:52 <kimmo> bastards suggested I used a proprietary accounting software instead
12:43:42 <todd> kimmo: good to hear though that you survived an audit using gnucash to track your money..
12:43:59 <todd> I've had some ppl suggest I not use it for that one fearful possibility
12:44:22 <kimmo> I use gnucash both personally, and for my 3 businesses
12:44:59 <kimmo> one of them businesses has a balance sheet that requires annual auditing, not from our local IRS equivalent though
12:45:24 <kimmo> or rather, my lenders required auditing
12:46:08 <todd> nice
12:46:12 <kimmo> yeah
12:46:23 <kimmo> I've been using gnucash since... umm, let's see
12:46:30 <kimmo> 1999? something like that
12:46:36 <kimmo> 1.2.x
12:47:20 <kimmo> can't remember exactly, since we switched to euros in 2002 and instead of figuring out how to do the conversion I just opened up new ledgers in january 2002
12:48:02 <kimmo> I have to admit though that having 7 years worth of data can be a burden on some of the boxes I've run gnucash on
12:50:20 <todd> I've noticed there is a close old year option (sorry probably differently named, not infront of me now)
12:50:32 <todd> but I'm afraid to use it since i still want to see old stuff in the current register
12:50:58 <todd> I hope before it gets too slow the db backend will be ready
12:51:02 <todd> or at least an option
12:51:03 <kimmo> which brings me to point out a wishlist item: On the General Journal report, it would be nice to be able to choose the format "Code: Name" on the report as the "Account" column, instead of the long path-inclusive name
12:52:07 <kimmo> I don't think you really need or want to close the books at year end for personal finances unless required by the law, I get all my tax reports fine not doing any book closing
12:52:26 <kimmo> plus it's nice to see the outstanding mortgage amount decrease over time :D
12:52:31 <todd> I didn't know if book closing would make things faster ..
12:52:38 <todd> well of course ;-)
12:52:52 <kimmo> I think it would just confuse you up
12:53:04 <kimmo> if you want comparisons, just run a multi column report or something
12:55:31 <todd> you may miss what I'm saying .. heh. I don't use reports a lot. I'm just wishing for tweaks to speed things up while data accumulates before the db backend is usable..
12:56:04 <kimmo> I'd imagine your best bet would be to just get more bang :D
13:05:36 *** warlord-afk is now known as warlord
13:06:03 <warlord> even once the db backend is usable it still might not change the time it takes to load a data file -- it's quite possible that the db will still load in everything from the start.
13:17:20 <todd> well, I expect at some point the db backend will permit gnucash to pull in relevent records as needed instead of everything into memory; i.e. make the db do some thinking vs loading the `db' into memory
13:17:44 <todd> probably won't help our personal finance since we run nearly everything through one or two checking accounts
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14:37:15 <polerin> afternewn
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14:43:47 <polerin> Having a problem with opening an account file in the windows 2.2.6 build (prebuilt) that was generated on a ubuntu machine. likely 2.2.4 on the ubuntu side, but unsure as the video card is trashed and displaying random junk on the screen obscuring version numbers :P
14:45:35 <polerin> the windows version is stating that it is unable to parse the file. Opened it up with vim and it was complete garbage, so renamed to a .gz and extracted the file. There are still bits that are unreadable by vim, but I'm assuming that's normal. the rest of it I actually see transactions including what I assume are uuid's
14:46:00 <jsled> After decompression, the file should be entirely "readable" by vim.
14:46:09 <jsled> In what way is it unreadable?
14:46:16 <polerin> sec
14:47:07 <polerin> bunch of ^@^@^@^@^@^@ (canna remember what code that is for the life of me :P ) and then it goes to text
14:47:37 <jsled> Where in the file are these characters? right at the beginning?
14:47:57 <polerin> those blocks are interspersed in between the accounts (I think?) and then there are sections of pure gibberish
14:48:23 <polerin> it looks like it's in the account descriptor, one block at the start of each
14:48:24 <jsled> Well, the file is corrupted.
14:48:37 <jsled> And in a way I've never heard of before.
14:49:05 <polerin> that's odd, because it's extracted from the gz without errors
14:49:48 <polerin> and there are still readable sections inside of the ^@, which makes me think it's just padding for some reason
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14:50:05 <polerin> (fixed width fields stuffed with known empty values?)
14:50:18 <jsled> no, there are no structures like that in the XML file format.
14:50:24 <polerin> oh it's xml?
14:50:29 <polerin> doesn't read like xml at all
14:50:46 <jsled> Right, because it's horribly corrupted.
14:50:50 <polerin> not even the legiable formats... it looks more like a transaction log
14:50:54 <jsled> Oh.
14:50:55 <jsled> Heh.
14:51:05 <jsled> I knew I should keep probing.
14:51:10 <polerin> hehe
14:51:10 <polerin> sec
14:51:12 <jsled> That's not your datafile. What file did you open?
14:51:39 <polerin> well, I grabbed the entire /home/* directory of the user, which is where the files were. (bleh)
14:52:00 <polerin> there was one labled Account, then a bunch of .log and .xac files
14:52:09 <polerin> I've attempted to open the .xac files as well
14:52:11 <jsled> http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_What_are_all_these_.xac_and_.log_files_filling_up_my_directory.3F
14:52:22 <polerin> yeah, I saw the difference
14:52:29 <polerin> I opened up the Account file
14:52:32 <polerin> (no extention)
14:53:02 <polerin> thats also the one I renamed Account.gz and extracted the "Account" file from within.
14:53:24 <jsled> Hmm. Well, that's the right one. But (apart from the gzip compression), it should be a text-oriented XML file.
14:53:36 <jsled> If you're seeing binary noise, then it's corrupted. :(
14:53:53 <polerin> see, the thing is that there are signifigant portions that are text
14:53:57 <polerin> and there are no tags
14:53:58 <polerin> hehe
14:54:12 <jsled> maybe a screenshot? Or pastebin a section?
14:54:13 <polerin> let me compare to one of the .log files
14:54:18 <polerin> sure
14:54:19 <polerin> sec
14:55:02 <polerin> do you want the noise, or just a section with the header and the non-noise
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14:55:54 <polerin> feh
14:55:56 <polerin> screenshot it is.
14:56:06 * polerin stabs pastebin.ca in the face.
14:58:10 <polerin> may I message?
14:58:20 <jsled> yup, thx
14:59:36 <polerin> you can see the part I'm thinking is a transaction log. Looks like fixed width possibly? or tab delimited
15:00:34 <jsled> yeah, the transaction log files do look like that.
15:00:44 <polerin> vierd.
15:00:57 * polerin scratches her head.
15:01:04 <jsled> You know. This looks like raw directory bytes.
15:01:13 <polerin> hmm
15:01:26 <jsled> Looking at the title bar of the vim window, are you sure you opened the Accounts file, not the directory containing it?
15:02:25 <polerin> fairly, as I opened it from an explorer context menu, but I'll verify
15:02:39 <polerin> might it be possibly Account.gz inside of Account.gz?
15:03:07 <polerin> no, that'd not have pure text in it
15:04:05 <polerin> fyi, opening the .xac file actually has a seperate error, which I think may be related to http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=475582
15:04:29 <polerin> (ie, it crashes the entire app out, most of the way through loading the file)
15:04:46 <jsled> I'm pretty positive you're looking at the directory, not at the contents of the Accounts file.
15:04:55 <jsled> Maybe in vim there, just File > Open and select Accounts ?
15:05:02 <polerin> tried it, it's identical
15:05:12 <polerin> let me try something
15:07:10 <polerin> might it be a tar?
15:07:26 <jsled> Perhaps, except gnucash doesn't use tar.
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15:07:47 <jsled> But, yes, it looks like it could easily be a tar of a directory of stuff.
15:07:55 <jsled> How'd you get this data?
15:08:17 <polerin> tar -czvf * > ../backup.gz
15:08:26 <polerin> the orginating tar contained the Account file
15:08:31 <polerin> which I then renamed to Account.gz
15:08:48 <polerin> and for the love of ... arg. I think it was a tar
15:09:42 <polerin> and you know what I bet I did?
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15:10:46 <polerin> I think I created an Account file previously, but I think it was account.tgz ... I may have left off the extention. feh.
15:10:58 <polerin> regardless.. the last .xac should work correct?
15:11:14 <jsled> should, yes. Those are just literal copies of the datafile.
15:11:28 <polerin> It's valid xml
15:11:36 <polerin> or looks to be, didn't validate it or anything :P
15:13:28 <polerin> crashes out, both compressed and uncompressed.
15:15:15 <polerin> one note.. there were two errors in the log, I believe about an error fetching a uuid correctly, then an error about perl. I belive but have not confirmed that they are generated on app load, not in file load
15:15:20 <polerin> checking that right now
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15:18:16 <polerin> http://pastebin.ca/1190778
15:18:27 <polerin> it is created on application startup, not on file loading.
15:18:55 <jsled> Yeah, the first is a "common" warning during library init. Not a big deal.
15:19:06 <polerin> had the feeling
15:19:16 <jsled> The second … I know that there's some issues around perl installation on Windows, but don't really know what it's all about.
15:19:39 <jsled> <http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Windows#Q:_Anything_else.3F> might be related.
15:20:05 <polerin> the second I'm not supprised about given that perl isn't installed unless the gIMP or mingw installed it, but even then I doubt theres a path set up for it.
15:21:34 <polerin> hmm, yeah, though that doesn't look like it's really used (I'm not worried about quotes)
15:21:55 <polerin> I'm using this as a personal thing, not something more complex :P
15:22:08 <polerin> this is XP sp2 by the way.
15:23:25 <polerin> gr. Stupid video card messing up. Might have to bite the bullet and spend some time figuring out why Ubuntu doesn't like the stupid cd drive on this box.
15:23:38 <polerin> I've been meening to install it anyway, just too backed up with other stuff to bother with it
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19:18:11 <warlord> polerin: FYI, tar -czvf * > Accounts.tgz will not create a tarfile named "Accounts.tgz". The file Accounts.tgz will be the terminal output of tar, which in this case is the list of files. The tarfile will get put into the first file returned from the glob '*'
19:18:50 <warlord> (I guess in your case it was ../backup.tgz --- but same thing)
19:27:35 <jsled> oh right. I should have saw that.
19:27:53 <jsled> needed the '-' after 'f'.
19:28:12 <jsled> (to be redirected like that; or just `tar czvf ../backup.tgz *`
19:28:15 <jsled> )
19:52:09 <warlord> right.
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22:17:25 <Vantage> hi, I had orignally set up gnucash with split transactions and half of the split going towards a loan as described here: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_How_do_I_account_for_loaning.2Fborrowing_money_to.2Ffrom_a_friend.3F However, now it looks like some of that money will not be coming back. How do I account for it, since currently it shows as an asset, but i'm not expecting it back?
22:18:52 <Vantage> I want to make sure it doesn't show as an asset, but I don't want it showing as a sudden expense either, since neither is true. I also would prefer not to have to go through and unsplit all the old transactions one by one..
22:20:20 <jsled> Hmm. I believe you're looking to write-off (some portion of) the asset.
22:22:54 <jsled> http://www.google.com/search?q=accounting+write+off seems to have some good stuff
22:26:44 <jsled> It seems to be treated as an Expense.
22:27:01 <jsled> (IANAA. TINAA.)
22:28:33 <Vantage> hrmm that seems like it would look odd on reports, e.g. like I suddenly expensed a lot of money in September, when really the money was paid over several months..
22:29:19 <jsled> It might, but it seems like that's how its Accounted for.
22:29:57 <jsled> If you want to normalize the cash flow, you could create a syntetic scheduled transaction to create a bunch of incremental Expenese transactions … maybe even 1-to-1 with the original mis-formed transactions
23:07:58 <jsled> [[[
23:07:59 <jsled> But Xero might be a more interesting example, simply because it targets the traditionally dry domain of accounting. One of its main features lets users automatically reconcile bookkeeping entries with bank account transactions. As a match is made, the 2 matching entries are removed from the list of stuff to be reconciled. Users compared this interaction to playing Tetris and described it as fun and addictive. Come on, making accounting fun? That'
23:07:59 <jsled> s an award-winning design.
23:08:05 <jsled> ]]] - http://www.useit.com/alertbox/application-design.html
23:11:20 <warlord> ummmmm
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23:15:04 * jsled somehow doubts ben_goodger is the Ben Goodger who works for google.
23:17:32 <warlord> Well, is Google Ben in the UK?
23:17:42 <jsled> no.
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