GnuCash could not find the files for the help documentation

[Matt Miller]

On 16.04.1 I "sudo apt-get install gnucash gnucash-docs". The packages install fine, and I get version 1:2.6.12-1 of gnucash and version 2.6.12-1 of gnucash-docs. However, when from within the GnuCash gui I select "Help -> Contents" or press F1 I get an error dialog telling me that the help files can't be found, and that the likely reason is that the package gnucash-docs hasn't been installed.
---
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.4
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Ec2AMI: ami-40d28157
Ec2AMIManifest: (unknown)
Ec2AvailabilityZone: us-east-1c
Ec2InstanceType: t2.micro
Ec2Kernel: unavailable
Ec2Ramdisk: unavailable
Package: gnucash-docs 2.6.12-1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=vt100
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/ksh93
ProcVersionSignature: User Name 4.4.0-59.80-generic 4.4.35
Tags: xenial ec2-images
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-59-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm audio cdrom dialout dip floppy lxd netdev plugdev sudo video
_MarkForUpload: True
---
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.4
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Ec2AMI: ami-40d28157
Ec2AMIManifest: (unknown)
Ec2AvailabilityZone: us-east-1c
Ec2InstanceType: t2.micro
Ec2Kernel: unavailable
Ec2Ramdisk: unavailable
Package: gnucash-docs 2.6.12-1
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=vt100
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/ksh93
ProcVersionSignature: User Name 4.4.0-59.80-generic 4.4.35
Tags: xenial ec2-images
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-59-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm audio cdrom dialout dip floppy lxd netdev plugdev sudo video
_MarkForUpload: True

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

I tried to test this on my Ubuntu 16.04 system, but the help documentation opens as expected, so I have to admit I'm not sure why it fails on your machine.

In order to automatically gather debugging information, could you please run the following command (only once) in a terminal:
apport-collect 1650775

This will add various information like the locale on your system. (Just in case you are running with some language and gnucash tries to look up the documentation translated to that language. Though even then, I would expect it to just default to the English version...)

When reporting bugs in the future please use apport by using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[Matt Miller (mattmiller)]

apport information

[Matt Miller (mattmiller)]

apport information

[Matt Miller (mattmiller)]

apport information

[Matt Miller (mattmiller)]

apport information

[Matt Miller (mattmiller)]

I ran "apport-collect 1650775," but I don't know how to tell if it worked. Anyway, thanks for following up on this.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

>I ran "apport-collect 1650775," but I don't know how to tell if it worked.

It added version numbers and similar information to the description as well as some other attachements. :) The additional information should make it easier for someone investigating this issue.

Unfortunately it is the same version as I tested with, so there's no further hints to why it behaves differently. The main difference is that you seem to be running an ec2-image, but I don't see how that could affect this issue. I don't have any more ideas I'm afraid, but hopefully someone will be able to figure out what is broken.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sandor Vroemisse (svroemisse)]

I encountered this issue today in 16.10 after having only just installed gnucash. Decided to upgrade to 17.04 since it's about time to anyway, yet the issue has remained.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

Thanks for your comment, Sandor. I've updated the tags with affected releases.

I must admit I still don't know why this seems to only affect some people. I have some questions which might bring us closer to identifying the cause (and potentially a solution):
1. Are you running the ec-images like the original reporter, or regular Ubuntu images?
2. Could you please attach the output of `apt policy gnucash-docs` (needs to be run in a terminal)? It's probably going to show that the package is installed as expected, but just to rule out strange things...

[Brad Martin (p04cs2xj0)]

Same issue here. I'm on kubuntu 16.04, and only just installed both packages.

[Richard Burgess (rbugman28)]

Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic

gnucash-docs:
  Installed: 2.6.19-1
  Candidate: 2.6.19-1
  Version table:
 *** 2.6.19-1 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

yelp ghelp:gnucash-help or gnucash-guide brings up the files
pressing F1 or ctrl+h in gnucash gets the error:
GnuCash could not find the files for the help documentation. This is likely because the 'gnucash-docs' package is not installed.

[Sandor Vroemisse (svroemisse)]

Same here:

apt policy gnucash-docs
gnucash-docs:
  Installed: 2.6.19-1
  Candidate: 2.6.19-1
  Version table:
 *** 2.6.19-1 500
        500 http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

yelp ghelp:gnucash-help will bring up the documentation for me as well.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

Thanks for responding.

>yelp ghelp:gnucash-help or gnucash-guide brings up the files

That's really interesting, because it indicates that the documentation package works as excepted, however the program fails to find it (somehow).

Is this an ec-image like the original report, or a regular install?

Adding bionic tag since this also seems to affect 18.04.

[Sandor Vroemisse (svroemisse)]

I have no idea what an ec-image is, I did a regular install afaik.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

The ec2-images (I believe) specially crafted images for the Amazon cloud services. So they are probably trimmed down to save space and possibly other changes which separates it from regular Ubuntu images. The main reason I was asking was to see if these changes had somehow triggered the issue or if it was also reproducible with a regular Ubuntu image, which turns out it is. :)