Problem Open existing database in MD 820
I've recently been using MD 803 under Mint 13 (Gnome), that worked. I upgraded to MD 820 via download of Debian Package .deb. That installed quietly and when I ran it I was given two choices "Create new File" or "Import Existing Fiie", I chose the latter and received a message "Sorry, an account set with this name already exists". When I click "OK" the dialog box disappears and Moneydance quits.
Has anyone else reported the missing third option to open an
existing database (mentioned in the 2012 documentation)?
It may be that I've chosen to keep my data file in a different
directory on my file system. But this didn't have the same effect
with all the earlier versions of MD that I've used in the past.
I've always been able to open my existing data files in all
previous releases up to 803.
If I rename my data file and try to import it I'm given a prompt: "The original file will be copied into the Moneydance Archive folder and then deleted." Would you like to continue?
This is odd behavior and I don't understand it or how to open the seemingly "existing" file. I've upgraded Moneydance numerous times in the past and have always chosen to put Moneydance in /opt. Once there I often add the version number to the end of the install folder name (i.e., /opt/Moneydance803/) so that I can keep them separate in the event a new upgrade gives me trouble. This is the first time I've chosen (of even knew of) a packaged version of MD. I accepted all the defaults and the package installer put MD in /opt/Moneydance/. I opened a GNOME Terminal, changed directory to /opt/Moneydance/ and entered ./Moneydance to start the application.
Thanks for your help,
Den.
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Support Staff 1 Posted by Ethan on Oct 14, 2012 @ 08:24 PM
Hello Den,
It appears that you were almost there. After renaming your old file and importing it, when you get the message about the original file being copied you should select yes. You should then be good to go.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,
Ethan Tupelo
Moneydance Support
2 Posted by vrden on Oct 15, 2012 @ 04:34 AM
Ethan,
Thanks for the fast response. I followed your instructions and succeeded in Importing my renamed MD data file. Thanks for the explanation too, however, there is no way I can trust the current setup without understanding it. I'll get into this another time.
Two things please:
I'm running Debian flavor of Linux (Mint 13), Gnome Desktop (Actually, Cinnamon), the .deb file I downloaded from MD did not contain a launcher. No worries I had written a launch script earlier. But, did MD distribute this .deb package without providing a launcher? If so, that would be inconsiderate of novice users.
This .deb package (MD ver 820) includes a copy of Java RTE, I guess that cuts down configuration anomalies with various versions floating about. However, I'd like to know, is it MD's current policy to NOT use the distro's installed Java RTE period, even if it were the same version MD is including in the package?
Perhaps you can also explain why I was not offered the initial option to open my existing data file as is described in the 2012 MD documentation. There they say I should see three options: Create New, Import, or Open Existing data file. I was only offered the first two, and so had to import my existing DB.
Lastly, I'm having trouble with running MD under Mint 13 Cinnamon, it is involved so I'll open a new support ticket for it.
Thanks for your interest in my use of this product, it is one of the reasons I stick with MD.
Den.
3 Posted by james f on Oct 15, 2012 @ 10:44 AM
vrden,
Double clicking on the Moneydance .deb package ought to have brought up your package manager; i.e. Ubuntu Software Center, Synaptic Package Manager and so forth.
Importing was the correct option since you were importing your older .md data file to the new data file format.
Support Staff 4 Posted by Ethan on Oct 15, 2012 @ 05:42 PM
Hi Den,
We unintentionally left out the creation of a shortcut in the latest Linux install. On some systems this shortcut seems to have been created, but on others it did not. This should be corrected in the next release. I'm glad you figured out how to do this yourself.
You are correct in our reasoning for including the version of Java we do with Moneydance. Many of the problems users report can be traced back to the version of Java they are using, so by including a version with the download we can cut down on the number of those problems significantly. However, you should be able to use the version installed or any official final releases that appear later without problems (although we did initially have some inconsistencies in the past year when users were trying to use Moneydance with Java 7 before a lot of the bugs had been worked out). Basically, if a user appears to be having Java related problems, we will usually recommend that they use the version that was packaged in our latest release, because we are reasonably sure that version will not produce similar errors.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,
Ethan Tupelo
Moneydance Support
5 Posted by vrden on Oct 18, 2012 @ 03:22 AM
James F, Thanks for the tip, this is what I did and the package manager set things up correctly. I see now that importing the data file was the correct method but that was not well covered in the MD 2012 documentation. In the end things went well.
Ethan T, I mentioned a distrust in this new data file handling of the new 820+ version of MD. I previously storred my data file on a separately rsynced disk on my network. I see that I can still do this but the documentation states that the data file has ".md" as the data file name extension, my version of MD (825 now) uses ".mdinternal" as the filename extension. Is this the file I should be backing up? I'll assume this extension name change reflects the "new" file format used by recent versions of MD.
Also, under my "Help" menu I see undocumented options "Show Documents Folder" and "Show Archive Folder", clicking on these menu items produces no visible output. They have no function assigned to them on my Linux Mint 13 (Cinnamon) system.
Will copying the "*.mdinternal" file in the ~/.moneydance/Documents folder successfully backup my MD data file?
Should I investigate further the non opperational Help Menu items?
Thanks ,
Den.
Support Staff 6 Posted by Ethan on Oct 18, 2012 @ 12:03 PM
Hi Den,
Yes, backing up ~/.moneydance/Documents will backup your data file.
In the first release of Moneydance 2012, we discovered that the show documents folder and show archive folder does not seem to function on most Linux builds. This will be corrected in a future release. All that option should do is take you to ~/.moneydance/Documents or /Archive
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,
Ethan Tupelo
Moneydance Support
7 Posted by vrden on Oct 25, 2012 @ 01:34 AM
Great, I'm running along just fine now using MD ver 825.
Are updates pushed to us user of Debian Packages, or do we have to actively search for them. If so, how do we do that? I don't see a Help menu item to check for updates and I don't see a repository listing for "infinitekind" in /etc/apt/sources.list or within the /etc/apt/sources.list.d folder.
Thanks.
8 Posted by Scott Meehan on Oct 25, 2012 @ 10:02 PM
Hi Den,
There is an update checker extension for Moneydance called "Moneydance Updater" that will check for updates, though I'm not sure if the 2012 updates are being pushed to it yet. There isn't a repository yet, however I just inquired about setting one up, so we may offer that in the future.
Please let us know if we can be of further assistance!
Scott Meehan
Moneydance Support
System closed this discussion on Mar 31, 2015 @ 03:55 PM.