QWin: Make Fixing Existing Bugs a Priority- Top 10 Legacy Bugs Quicken Ignores

markus1957

So what are the Top 10 bugs in Quicken Windows that never get fixed?

Use the "Reply" link to describe the bug and the steps required to re-produce it. If you can't do that it's not a real bug. Use the "Comment" link to offer opinions on the Replies.

Then use the "Like" link to vote for bugs described in the Replies that you'd like Quicken to prioritize for fixing.

Tax Planner errors were at the top of my list but over the last 3 versions Quicken has really cleaned them up. What I found is that if the developers are presented with a small test data file that focuses on bringing out the bug clearly, it gets fixed pretty quickly. If it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, forget it.

This is of course unofficial and more of a curiosity to see how many of the "bugs" discussed in this forum are reproducible. But you never know, if some low hanging fruit is described, it might just get fixed.

Ronnie D Campbell

Budgets still reflects gross sales price of stocks sold in the realized gains category  rather than realized gain. ??? The capital gain report is correct.

markus1957

Ronnie D Campbell said:

Budgets still reflects gross sales price of stocks sold in the realized gains category  rather than realized gain. ??? The capital gain report is correct.

Not a bug. Gross Proceeds represents actual cash flow. Capital gains can take years to realize.

QPW

Sometimes it seems that problems are "too easy" to fix, or too easy to workaround so they get ignored.  The category list popup has been too big since at least Quicken 2015.

Using Quicken own min spec of 1024x768.

mshiggins

QPW said:

Sometimes it seems that problems are "too easy" to fix, or too easy to workaround so they get ignored.  The category list popup has been too big since at least Quicken 2015.

Using Quicken own min spec of 1024x768.

+1000

Ronnie D Campbell

Ronnie D Campbell said:

Budgets still reflects gross sales price of stocks sold in the realized gains category  rather than realized gain. ??? The capital gain report is correct.

Then where does the cost to purchase the stock that was sold show up in the budget?  Some of these stocks were bought & sold in the same month.

QPW

BTW If I was point at whole systems like "Tax Planner" I would basically point at "Budget".  As in the Graph view, the Annual view, and the reports all have "differences" in the way they treat things, and what they support.  Like "Everything Else" means different things in the different views.  You can filter accounts in the reports, but not in the views.  In the views you can include reminders, but not in the reports.

And the "parent category" total lines don't take into account sub categories with reminders correctly.  The last time I checked if you have a balance of $59 from last month, plus a budget of $179 this month, and an actual of zero this month, you don't get a balance of $179.


And the "To Date" columns are worthless given all the math errors in them, which also seem to be tied at least in part to rollovers in sub categories.  As you can see above $235 + $3 = $3 isn't correct.

If people can't count on the math in Quicken's budget, what good is it?

gmalis1

Number One with a bullet...although I don't experience it...the "click through" problem when you use FILE > Backup.

That one's lingered for a couple of years now.

Second on my list...a way to delete your Quicken Cloud data...not just reset it.

Third on my list...actually get Mobile Cloud sync to work in a reliable fashion for more than just three weeks at a time before it breaks again...causing a major headache to get it work again.  

Fourth...when I resize a report window, then save it...it doesn't save the re-size.  It's still the crappy little window I have to drag the top to open further when I open the saved report again. 

OK, I'm done now...although I could fill all 10.  

QPW

gmalis1 said:

Number One with a bullet...although I don't experience it...the "click through" problem when you use FILE > Backup.

That one's lingered for a couple of years now.

Second on my list...a way to delete your Quicken Cloud data...not just reset it.

Third on my list...actually get Mobile Cloud sync to work in a reliable fashion for more than just three weeks at a time before it breaks again...causing a major headache to get it work again.  

Fourth...when I resize a report window, then save it...it doesn't save the re-size.  It's still the crappy little window I have to drag the top to open further when I open the saved report again. 

OK, I'm done now...although I could fill all 10.  

Number One with a bullet...although I don't experience it...the "click through" problem when you use FILE > Backup.

That one's lingered for a couple of years now.

No it hasn't, it is a Quicken 2017 only bug.

On your others you might want to break them out so that they can be voted on individually.

markus1957

Ronnie D Campbell said:

Budgets still reflects gross sales price of stocks sold in the realized gains category  rather than realized gain. ??? The capital gain report is correct.

They will show up in the expense side of the budget.

markus1957

QPW said:

BTW If I was point at whole systems like "Tax Planner" I would basically point at "Budget".  As in the Graph view, the Annual view, and the reports all have "differences" in the way they treat things, and what they support.  Like "Everything Else" means different things in the different views.  You can filter accounts in the reports, but not in the views.  In the views you can include reminders, but not in the reports.

And the "parent category" total lines don't take into account sub categories with reminders correctly.  The last time I checked if you have a balance of $59 from last month, plus a budget of $179 this month, and an actual of zero this month, you don't get a balance of $179.


And the "To Date" columns are worthless given all the math errors in them, which also seem to be tied at least in part to rollovers in sub categories.  As you can see above $235 + $3 = $3 isn't correct.

If people can't count on the math in Quicken's budget, what good is it?

With respect to Tax Planner, I started with about 10 to 12 specific calculation issues. For Q15 and then Q17, the developers made a special effort to contact users who described specific issues, then they gathered data to reproduce the issues and generated fixes for them. So for the Budget, I think working thru the calculation issues one by one is the way to go. It worked for Tax Planner. For Tax Planner, in many cases I generated a new data file and only entered enough data to generate the error and then captured it in a screen shot. Finding the source of the error was easy for the developers when they had a data file with only a small amount of data that targeted the error.

QPW

QPW said:

BTW If I was point at whole systems like "Tax Planner" I would basically point at "Budget".  As in the Graph view, the Annual view, and the reports all have "differences" in the way they treat things, and what they support.  Like "Everything Else" means different things in the different views.  You can filter accounts in the reports, but not in the views.  In the views you can include reminders, but not in the reports.

And the "parent category" total lines don't take into account sub categories with reminders correctly.  The last time I checked if you have a balance of $59 from last month, plus a budget of $179 this month, and an actual of zero this month, you don't get a balance of $179.


And the "To Date" columns are worthless given all the math errors in them, which also seem to be tied at least in part to rollovers in sub categories.  As you can see above $235 + $3 = $3 isn't correct.

If people can't count on the math in Quicken's budget, what good is it?

The problem here is that is exactly what I have done in the betas for years.  And frankly I'm getting really tired of doing that.  I almost never submit a bug that I don't provide exactly how to reproduce it, including any data file that is needed.

And frankly I believe that the main reason that bugs don't get fixed is because there are way too many of them for them to get to.  And every time they add any new features, they add enough problems, that they basically take up most of the development cycle trying to fix them.

And here is another thing that makes it a bit of a pain for me.
I don't use the budget, I'm not a budget person.

I have a few bugs in Quicken that really "bug me", but there is no way they are going to be "top 10".  So I just live with my workarounds.

When asked by Quicken Inc if I would recommend Quicken to others the answer is always No, unless I know that person has lots of time to learn all of the things they shouldn't touch, and all the workarounds.

splasher

When running a Networth report, the right most column balances should be the same for every report regardless of the interval selected, but they aren't for the investment accounts.  All other account types are consistent.

This problem has been around since at least 2012.

Bylo Selhi

Paste from Clipboard hasn't worked properly for me for several editions of Quicken for Windows. 

• Sometimes it works correctly.
• Sometimes it pastes the string twice, e.g. 123.45 becomes 123.45123.45.
• Sometimes paste doesn't work at all, i.e. the input field remains empty.
• Sometimes the Paste option is greyed out in the context menu (and, of course Ctrl-V doesn't do anything.)

In each of these situations when I paste into say, Windows Notepad, the expected string appears correctly. So this is clearly a Quicken issue. 

I can't find any consistent way to reproduce this/these bug(s.) They come and go. Sometimes restarting Quicken "fixes" it for a while. Other times it makes no difference. 

markus1957

QPW said:

BTW If I was point at whole systems like "Tax Planner" I would basically point at "Budget".  As in the Graph view, the Annual view, and the reports all have "differences" in the way they treat things, and what they support.  Like "Everything Else" means different things in the different views.  You can filter accounts in the reports, but not in the views.  In the views you can include reminders, but not in the reports.

And the "parent category" total lines don't take into account sub categories with reminders correctly.  The last time I checked if you have a balance of $59 from last month, plus a budget of $179 this month, and an actual of zero this month, you don't get a balance of $179.


And the "To Date" columns are worthless given all the math errors in them, which also seem to be tied at least in part to rollovers in sub categories.  As you can see above $235 + $3 = $3 isn't correct.

If people can't count on the math in Quicken's budget, what good is it?

For whatever reason, Quicken decided to devote time to resolving Tax Planner issues and did it outside of Beta. They reached out in 2015 and again before 2017. It was low hanging fruit; simple calculation errors needing to be tracked down in the code and fixed. I suspect the Budget issues are similar and could be just as easily resolved. Not a lot of hours were invested. If they used the same person who tracked down Tax Planner coding issues, I suspect the Budget could be fixed in short order also. I think the key though was it was done outside of Beta; if just 10 man-hours a month were devoted to legacy issues, a lot of progress could be made. I don't use the Budget either so I'm not a good resource to get the issues out. I've settled on Scheduled Reminders to best manage cash flow.

Ronnie D Campbell

Ronnie D Campbell said:

Budgets still reflects gross sales price of stocks sold in the realized gains category  rather than realized gain. ??? The capital gain report is correct.

Where//.  Under what category?? I cant find them anywhere.  Help.

Peculiar_Investor

Many releases ago, there was the ability to edit/create asset classes. That ability was taken away long ago, so users are left with either whatever Quicken has decided are the asset classes, or whatever additional asset classes the user created many moons ago. 

The inability to the user to decide what asset classes they want to track and assign to their investments is a major deficiency (aka bug). 

QPW

Well since we haven't got much attention for this yet for "top 10", I'm going to throw in one more like the category list, that are "aggravating, easy to fix, but don't get fixed"

Account list can't be sorted alphabetically.

QPW

And another is that whenever they put out any kind of update, Quicken "forgets" if it is maximized or not, and the restore down values for the window get set to their defaults, instead of what the user set.
And the reason is because they recreate the file storing this information, because they have put the version number in the path to the user.config file.
c:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Quicken_Inc\qw.exe_StrongName_kcd3dgwhvwi4wqkcd0s5zhuwduwxjlq1\26.1.6.1\user.config

Sherlock

There are so many long-term issues to choose from...

I suppose my number one issue would be that Automatic entry downloaded transactions must not be matched to transfer transactions because doing so breaks the transfer transaction.   I am not a fan of Automatic entry but, after some Fidelity update a few years ago, our Cash Management Account (brokerage with a linked checking account) began performing Automatic entry in the checking account. The Automatic entry in the checking register ignores the Online Services setting in the brokerage register that should disable the functionality. The Downloaded Transactions tab is occasionally visible in the checking register but usually appears to be hidden behind the Bill and Income Reminders tab which on occasion also does not appear when it should.

Another nuisance that has been present for a number of years may be associated with the handling of keyboard events.  I've noted both Backup (Ctrl + B) and One Step Update (Ctrl + 1) will pop-up two windows as though the key press and release are each being handled as the request.  I've also had to stop using the keyboard to exit the program (Alt + F4 or Alt + F, X) because using the keyboard would occasionally hang during the shutdown.  

Many users have had problems recognizing the current context for various operations (for example, for Ctrl - X, Ctrl - C and Ctrl - V).  Providing better visual feedback for the focus and an auditory cue for a keyboard miss would help. 

QPW

Sherlock said:

There are so many long-term issues to choose from...

I suppose my number one issue would be that Automatic entry downloaded transactions must not be matched to transfer transactions because doing so breaks the transfer transaction.   I am not a fan of Automatic entry but, after some Fidelity update a few years ago, our Cash Management Account (brokerage with a linked checking account) began performing Automatic entry in the checking account. The Automatic entry in the checking register ignores the Online Services setting in the brokerage register that should disable the functionality. The Downloaded Transactions tab is occasionally visible in the checking register but usually appears to be hidden behind the Bill and Income Reminders tab which on occasion also does not appear when it should.

Another nuisance that has been present for a number of years may be associated with the handling of keyboard events.  I've noted both Backup (Ctrl + B) and One Step Update (Ctrl + 1) will pop-up two windows as though the key press and release are each being handled as the request.  I've also had to stop using the keyboard to exit the program (Alt + F4 or Alt + F, X) because using the keyboard would occasionally hang during the shutdown.  

Many users have had problems recognizing the current context for various operations (for example, for Ctrl - X, Ctrl - C and Ctrl - V).  Providing better visual feedback for the focus and an auditory cue for a keyboard miss would help. 

I was thinking to mention the not matching downloaded transfers when in automatic entry mode, because it is in fact the one that bugs me the most, but I have never seen anyone else mention it, so I didn't figure it was one of the "top 10".  And I'm not sure how hard it would be to fix, for my "second list".

I would like to point out full flow and ramifications.
I reconcile my credit card, and put in a future transaction (a transfer) for that amount (or this could be a scheduled reminder).

If there is a return between the end of the statement, and when I pay they will reduce the amount of the payment (which I have set to automatically pay).  So the downloaded transaction will be a bit lower then the original amount.

Now the downloaded transaction comes in to the credit card account.  And I change the amount of the manually entered transaction to match it, and click on the Uncleared status to match it to the downloaded transaction.

What will happen is that it will match, but the category will be set to blank.
But if I go to the checking account, I will find the transaction still has the [Credit Card] category.  At this point the two transactions are "cross linked", as in there is no way to get them to point at each other.  If you change the blank category in the credit card account to point to the checking account, it will create another transaction in the checking account.  If you are in the credit card account and select to go to the matching transfer, it will go to this new transaction in the checking account, not the original transaction.

Once it is crossed linked like this, the only thing you can do is delete both, and enter it again.

There are two workaround.  One is to always remember to change the amount for the manually entered transaction to the exact payment (based on say an email), before the download.  With the amounts matching, it will match automatically, and if it does it works properly.  The second workaround is not to match, and just delete the downloaded transaction, and mark the manually entered transaction cleared.

[email protected]

And I would add the help text. It needs some love. Here's an example from the Advanced tab of the report customization dialog. The help text for Transfers says "Exclude internal: Excludes transfers within accounts that are included in the
report or graph (such as the opening balance or adjustment transactions)."  What?? Excludes transfers that are included?? Makes me wonder if the programmers know what that option does. That might explain all the inconsistency regarding transfers and balances you find users are experiencing as evidenced by the comments in this Community thread.

QPW

[email protected] said:

And I would add the help text. It needs some love. Here's an example from the Advanced tab of the report customization dialog. The help text for Transfers says "Exclude internal: Excludes transfers within accounts that are included in the
report or graph (such as the opening balance or adjustment transactions)."  What?? Excludes transfers that are included?? Makes me wonder if the programmers know what that option does. That might explain all the inconsistency regarding transfers and balances you find users are experiencing as evidenced by the comments in this Community thread.

Well that wording is poor.

What the text is trying to say, is said better in the parentheses.
The option excludes Online balance and adjustment transactions, or more formally if the account name is ACCOUNT, and the transaction has a category of [ACCOUNT].

I know that what was "internal" changed a few years ago, and there are several people that thought it should be changed back to the old behavior, but for the life of me I can't remember what the old definition of "internal" was.

But I don't think this is the source of the new complaints about transfers and balances, but I will admit that I haven't been following the details of those threads.

QPW

Here is another that has to do with automatic entry mode, and in this case using it in investment accounts.

There are certain kinds of transactions like a partial sell (not selling all shares of a security) where Quicken wants to ask a question, like "what lots to sell?".  It seems that this "prompting" is tied to the Downloaded Transactions tab.

The result is that if the user is in automatic entry mode and one of these transactions comes in, they see an indication that the transactions are there, but they don't allow for dealing with them.
The user has to switch out of automatic entry mode to see the transactions and get prompted.

markus1957

QPW said:

Here is another that has to do with automatic entry mode, and in this case using it in investment accounts.

There are certain kinds of transactions like a partial sell (not selling all shares of a security) where Quicken wants to ask a question, like "what lots to sell?".  It seems that this "prompting" is tied to the Downloaded Transactions tab.

The result is that if the user is in automatic entry mode and one of these transactions comes in, they see an indication that the transactions are there, but they don't allow for dealing with them.
The user has to switch out of automatic entry mode to see the transactions and get prompted.

further on that one, Quicken should not stop for the prompt at all. Quicken should ask for default handling, for example FIFO, or if Average Cost is selected, just carry on using default handling without stopping. This is annoying even when using the Accept option. There is no reason to pause, if the default is not desired, the user can edit the transaction and select the method or lots for the individual transaction. More often than not default is used in the accept process.

QPW

Speaking of "prompting", here is one.

If you use Move Transactions, it will prompt you for every single transaction that is reconciled (Are you sure you want to move this reconciled transactions).  At the most it should prompt you once for all the transactions that you have selected to move.

Bylo Selhi

Another annoyance that I experience on QW15 that I never experienced on prior versions. The product works fine for a bunch of transactions, downloaded and manual. Then I do something that involves a different account, e.g. click on the account name. Then for some reason QW15 gets hung and just sits there. I have to kill it using Task Manager. something I'm loathe to do for a variety of reasons, and restart QW15. Then it works OK again for a while--until it hangs again. I've seen this on two different PCs and two different versions of Windows (7 and 10) so I'm pretty sure it's not hardware or OS related.

QPW

If you use popup registers, the action (gear) icon menu isn't available on investment accounts.

QPW

The prompting of "Is this entry XXX scheduled reminder" (and no way to turn it off).

mistertheplague

Peculiar_Investor said:

Many releases ago, there was the ability to edit/create asset classes. That ability was taken away long ago, so users are left with either whatever Quicken has decided are the asset classes, or whatever additional asset classes the user created many moons ago. 

The inability to the user to decide what asset classes they want to track and assign to their investments is a major deficiency (aka bug). 

WHAT? This capability used to exist in Quicken? 

mistertheplague

Lifetime Planner doesn't recognize some users's debt reduction plans