Quickbooks 2015 file errors in Win 8.1 guest

[Gurtz]

Hi all,

I used to use Quickbooks 2005 in a Windows XP guest with a Linux Mint host. My files were stored on a shared folder on the host. Everything worked great!

Since XP is now out of support and my copy of Quickbooks was very old, I decided to upgrade. I now have Quickbooks 2015 running in a Windows 8.1 guest on the same Linux Mint host. This is much less successful.

Quickbooks seems unable to work correctly with the Quickbooks files stored on the host (same shared folder situation that worked fine with XP and QB 2005). When I try and restore a backup file from the shared folder I get the following:

"We're sorry. QuickBooks couldn't open your company file. We'll try to fix the problem. Click Start to begin. If the problem continues, contact support for assistance and report error codes: (-6176,0)."

I click Start. It tries to restore the file and then I get (almost simultaneously) the following two messages:

"Your data has NOT been restored." (from Quickbooks) ... and ...
"Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer?" (from Windows).

Even if I say "yes" to the second message (from Windows) it doesn't make a difference. I have even tried running Quickbooks as Administrator, but that doesn't help.

HOWEVER, if I do the same operation with the Quickbooks files stored locally on the Windows 8.1 guest ... it works. [I really would like to keep the files on the host, so this is less than ideal.]

Can anyone assist?

Thanks much,
Greg

[loukingjr]

Can you copy one of the Quickbook files from the shared folder to your Windows desktop and/or just drag one from the shared folder to the Windows desktop? And that one will open in Quickbooks?

[Gurtz]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, a filed copied to the Windows guest Desktop can be opened/access without problems, but the same file opened/accessed from the shared folder fails.

[loukingjr]

I'm just guessing at this point but assuming you don't have the shared folder set to read only, the new QuickBooks may be trying to create a temp file inside the shared folder while trying to open it. The VirtualBox shared folders may not like synchronous file operations, but that is a guess. You may have to set up a Samba share to get things working. Others would know better than I so I would wait for someone else to reply.

[Gurtz]

Thanks. The folder is not read only, and QuickBooks is able to write various temporary files to the directory. But overall the operation fails.

[socratis]

Are you using the network style access (\\VBoxSvr\SharedDir) or are you mapping the SharedDir to a drive letter (e.g. F:\)? Have you tried it both ways? If you have, and it doesn't work, then I would go for a 'true' network share via Samba, as loukingjr suggested.

VirtualBox shared folders present a very simplified file system implementation, just enough to read/write files from/to the guest. Many applications can error when using shared folders, because they expect advanced features, like file locking or access controls, which don't exist for shared folders.

[Gurtz]

I am mapping using a drive letter (though that drive letter is assigned automatically by Windows).

I think you and loukingjr are probably on the right track about needing to try a Samba share. I think the new Quickbooks is probably using some special file access commands that are not supported by the shared folders. I'll give it a shot.

Thanks!

[Gurtz]

It took me a while to get SAMBA set up correctly, but now that I have ... Quickbooks works just fine.

Thanks again for all your help, loukingjr and socratis! I really appreciate it!

Greg

[loukingjr]

welcome Greg.