`hledger add` two transactions, but only one persists

[reedspool]

Just begun, set my $LEDGER_FILE. Below is a session where I create the empty file, then add two transactions. But when I'm done, only a newline and then my second transaction are present. Very concerning.

hledger setup output below. My system is Termux on Android.

I see now that 1.43.2 is 10ish months old so I'll attempt to upgrade right now. That's just what I got out of the Termux apt install hledger.

$ touch $LEDGER_FILE
$ hledger --version
hledger 1.43.2, linux-aarch64
$ hledger add
Adding transactions to journal file <correct $LEDGER_FILE>
Any command line arguments will be used as defaults.
Use tab key to complete, readline keys to edit, enter to accept defaults.
An optional (CODE) may follow transaction dates.
An optional ; COMMENT may follow descriptions or amounts.
If you make a mistake, enter < at any prompt to go one step backward.
To end a transaction, enter . when prompted.
To quit, enter . at a date prompt or press control-d or control-c.
Date [2026-04-29]:
Description: cash in my pocket
Account 1: assets:cash
Amount  1: 37
Account 2: equity:opening balances
Amount  2 [-37]:
Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): .
2026-04-29 cash in my pocket
    assets:cash                          37
    equity:opening balances             -37

Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: y
Saved.
Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit)
Date [2026-04-29]:
Description: soda and bitters
Using this similar transaction for defaults:
2026-04-29 cash in my pocket
    assets:cash                          37
    equity:opening balances             -37

Account 1 [assets:cash]:
Amount  1 [37]: -2
Account 2 [equity:opening balances]: expenses:food:bar
Amount  2 [2]:
Account 3 (or . or enter to finish this transaction): .
2026-04-29 soda and bitters
    assets:cash                    -2
    expenses:food:bar               2

Save this transaction to the journal ? [y]: y
Saved.
Starting the next transaction (. or ctrl-D/ctrl-C to quit)
Date [2026-04-29]:
$ cat $LEDGER_FILE

2026-04-29 soda and bitters
    assets:cash                    -2
    expenses:food:bar               2
$

$ hledger setup
Checking your hledger setup..
Legend: good, neutral, unknown, warning

hledger
* is a released version ?                  yes  hledger 1.43.2, linux-aarch64
* is up to date ?                            ?  couldn't read https://hledger.org/install.html , VanillaHttpException (HttpExceptionRequest Request {
  host                 = "hledger.org"
  port                 = 443
  secure               = True
  requestHeaders       = []
  path                 = "/install.html"
  queryString          = ""
  method               = "GET"
  proxy                = Nothing
  rawBody              = False
  redirectCount        = 10
  responseTimeout      = ResponseTimeoutMicro 10000000
  requestVersion       = HTTP/1.1
  proxySecureMode      = ProxySecureWithConnect
}
 (InternalException (HandshakeFailed (Error_Protocol "certificate has unknown CA" UnknownCa))))
* is a native binary for this machine ?    yes  aarch64
* is installed in PATH ?                   yes  /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/hledger
* has a system text encoding configured ?  yes  UTF-8, data files should use this encoding
* has a user config file ? (optional)       no
* current directory has a local config ?    no

terminal
* the NO_COLOR variable is defined ?        no
* --color is configured by config file ?    no
* hledger will use color by default ?      yes
* the PAGER variable is defined ?           no
* --pager is configured by config file ?    no
* hledger will use a pager when needed ?   yes  /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/less
* the LESS variable is defined ?           yes
* the HLEDGER_LESS variable is defined ?    no
* adjusting LESS variable for color etc. ? yes
* --pretty is enabled by config file ?      no  tables will use ASCII characters
* bash shell completions are installed ?     ?
* zsh shell completions are installed ?      ?

journal
* the LEDGER_FILE variable is defined ?    yes  <my correct $LEDGER_FILE>
* a default journal file is readable ?     yes  <my correct $LEDGER_FILE>
* it includes additional files ?            no
* all commodities are declared ?            no  1; declaring helps set their precision
* all accounts are declared ?               no  2 undeclared
* all accounts have types ?                yes
* accounts of each type were detected ?     no  LERVnot found; type: queries, bs/cf/is reports may not work
* commodities/accounts are checked ?        no  use -s to check commodities/accounts
* balance assertions are checked ?         yes  use -I to ignore assertions

[simonmichael]

@reedspool, thanks for the report. I see nothing wrong with your transcript, and yes that sounds very concerning. We have never had a bug like this reported. I think something else must be writing to that file, is it possible ?

[simonmichael]

This routine is called before adding each transaction to the file. It has the power to erase the file. But it's hard to imagine how doesFileExist could be going wrong. We do have other termux users.

[simonmichael]

(Also, if it was doing that, you would have seen "Creating hledger journal file" in the output.)

[reedspool]

I can't think of what else would be writing to the file. I have the file open in a buffer in Emacs, but that wouldn't be writing unless I switched over to it and did that manually. The file is also in a SyncThing sync'd directory, but I am not editing on another machine so no writing should occur.

Some more info:

I added some more entries manually, used hledger balance and register and the new entries were perfectly well-formed. Then tried to hledger add again and it had this same behavior (but more clear now): It overwrote the beginning of the file with a newline and the entry text.

Also, with respect to doesFileExist, when I delete the $LEDGER_FILE, then hledger setup reports the default ledger file location, even though env | grep LEDGER_FILE absolutely is set. hledger setup reports the correct file only after touch $HLEDGER_FILE

Also I see to get a version that's not on my apt, the only option seems to be building from source, which seems like quite a trial on Android Termux.

Thanks for the quick reply! This is not urgent for me, I can edit manually for now.

[reedspool]

Oh I just realized, there's another confounding factor, I have a custom server running that's reading from this directory and watching it (e.g. inotify) and maybe I have a bug there which is holding a file handle open?

Anyways I wouldn't mind if you closed this as no repro, as my situation seems clearly unique. Thanks again.

[simonmichael]

Thanks for the extra details. I think something in your setup is causing this, but maybe there's something hledger could do differently. Can you repeat it at will ? I would try selectively disabling those complicating factors until it stops happening.

[simonmichael]

Claude thinks:

SyncThing's folder paths on Android frequently live on /storage/emulated/0/... (the Android "shared storage" FUSE bridge) or external SD cards (sometimes still FAT/exFAT). FUSE mounts and FAT-family filesystems are exactly the cases where O_APPEND is known to be unreliable on Android — the kernel translates the open into a synthesised path through SAF, and the append flag is not always preserved.
Pure Termux home (/data/data/com.termux/files/home/...) is ext4 and would not show this. So the test is whether the journal is on Termux home or on a syncthing-mounted shared-storage path.

# What filesystem is the journal on?
stat -f -c '%T %d' "$LEDGER_FILE"
df -T "$LEDGER_FILE" 2>/dev/null || mount | grep "$(dirname "$LEDGER_FILE")"

# Does append work as expected?
: >/tmp/append-test
echo one >> /tmp/append-test
echo two >> /tmp/append-test
cat /tmp/append-test          # expect "one\ntwo\n"

# Same test on the real path:
TESTFILE="$(dirname "$LEDGER_FILE")/_append-test"
: >"$TESTFILE"
echo one >>"$TESTFILE"
echo two >>"$TESTFILE"
cat "$TESTFILE"               # if this shows only "two", O_APPEND is broken
rm -f "$TESTFILE"