How I recovered from my sync problem (that I helped create)
I'm posting this in case it helps others. I'm hoping you read this before installing MD on a new computer and cleaning the old hard drive. I'm not sure if you can prevent what happened to me, but maybe you can be better prepared..
First thing: The sync instructions, while functional, don't make it clear that one computer will be the master and others will all be slaves. This becomes important if you ever change your computer setup like I did.
Initial MD setup was the 2017 version on a Windows 10 laptop. Either because I chose poorly, or because that's the way sync worked at the time, I used the Shared Folder method and selected a folder that happened to be in DropBox. I don't think DropBox Folder was an option at the time
My slave computers were a Macbook Pro and a Win 10 desktop. Initial setup was smooth, and the three devices synced happily for over a year.
In 2019 I bought a new laptop and installed MD on it. I chose sync, Shared Folder, and the DropBox folder. It also loaded fine and has been working well for over a year now. At the time, I wiped the old laptop. I was now running three slave MD setups off a Shared Dropbox Folder without realizing there was no master.
There was no indication of a problem until today when I discovered an apparently corrupted data file with missing accounts. I restored from a 5-day old backup and proceeded to re-enter everything I've done the last 5 days.
After finishing up getting the file in order, I closed Moneydance and remoted in to a slave machine. It didn't reflect any of the changes I'd made, and its DB folder had different dates than my laptop. During troubleshooting, I realized my recently restored laptop had "No Sync" as the option with no way to change it. Oddly it still had the required password stored, but it didn't have the ability to sync.
Following Derek Kent's excellent instructions and using his script, I was able to make my new laptop the master. This resulted in a second sync folder to be created in DropBox with a different long string of characters.
I couldn't find a way to make the other slave computers look at the new master folder. In the end, I gave up, moved the existing MD files out of the directories on the slave computers, and deleted the .moneydance folder on each slave's Dropbox root. I made sure MD was closed on all three computers, backed up the old sync folder, and deleted it from Dropbox. I then followed the sync instructions to create a new set of accounts as a Shared Folder sync. Within a few minutes, both slave computers were using the new DB folder.
If there's a better way to have handled this, please post below so that others will know if it happens to them. There's probably another FAQ that tells how to completely move MD to a new computer, and now I'm wishing I'd followed it when I bought this new laptop last year.
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Support Staff 1 Posted by Maddy on Jun 14, 2020 @ 11:47 AM
Hi Ted,
Generally, the steps for moving a data set from a computer to another safely are as follow:
For further information please refer to these articles:
"Syncing with Other Computers" here
When you want to just use the new system, on the older computer, open Moneydance and choose Help --> Show Documents Folder. A window will open displaying your .moneydance data file (on a Windows computer, the file will appear as a regular folder, without the orange Moneydance icon). You should take a copy of this file, and move it to the new computer.
On the new computer, move the .moneydance file to the location you want it to be stored. Then double click the .moneydance file to access your data. Alternatively, open Moneydance and choose File --> Open --> Open Other (or 'Open Other' from the Welcome window).
Alternatively, you can use backup files to transfer your data. Open Moneydance and choose File --> Export Backup. This will create a .moneydancearchive backup file that you can move to the new computer using a USB, shared folder or whichever method you prefer.
On the new computer, double click the backup file to restore your data. Alternatively, open Moneydance and choose File --> Restore from Backup (or 'Import New Account Set' from the Welcome window).
When you restore your data in this way, a new data file is created in the default location for use going forward. The default location is accessible from Moneydance via Help --> Show Documents Folder.
When you're happy with the data that is populated into Moneydance, you can remove the backup file you transferred from the older computer.
For further details, please refer to this article of the Knowledge Base.
I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if you have further questions or need any assistance.
--
Maddy, Infinite Kind Support
2 Posted by dwg on Jun 14, 2020 @ 09:46 PM
I'm a fellow user.
When you have syncing setup there are functional differences depending on the way you move data between systems.
If you are replacing what is a secondary system there is probably little to gain from copying data, as you can use the File --> New command along with Open Sync File to build the data on the new system.
If you are replacing a mater system then there are implications of the approach take. If you take a Moneydance backup of the master system and restore it on the new system you will have created a new standalone Data Set. There is no way of linking this to the existing syncing set so it is necessary to recreate the syncing relationships from scratch.
If on the other hand you copy the data set as is between machines the new machine should come up as the master in the relationship - provided everything is set up identically e.g. same connection type, if using dropbox folder the folder is in the same place etc.
You should not start Moneydance on the old machine without taking some steps as you do not want two masters. You may for example rename the data set on it, if you were keeping that box you could then set it up as an additional secondary machine.
3 Posted by Ted on Jun 15, 2020 @ 12:15 AM
Thanks for the replies which will hopefully help others who change their master computer. I feel like the syncing article could further clarify the fact that a master-slave relationship is being created and that it matters when changes are made down the road. I didn't realize this until well after my old master was completely wiped, leaving me with three slaves that worked perfectly until i had to restore from backup.
Maddy closed this discussion on Jun 15, 2020 @ 08:10 AM.