Quicken for Mac 2018 v5.6.x Released

Unknown

Qckn Fan said:

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled After updating to Quicken 5.6 for Mac, Quicken is crashing when I try to customiz....


Since updating to version 5.6 for Mac, Quicken crashes when I try to Customize the date range in the "Spending Over Time" report. Even if I use any of the preset date ranges (e.g. Last 12 Months), Quicken will immediately crash. Is there a fix on the way?

5.6.1 fixed it! Thank you very much!!

jacobs

jacobs said:

Marcus, another Reports UI comment: when I create a New Report, the first thing it asks me to do is name the report. That has always seemed odd to me, as I often generate Quicken reports on the fly and don't want to save or name them. If I don't type a name, Quicken names it for me: "Category Transaction 4" or similar, which is okay. But here's the real problem: the Customize dialog box has a checkbox for "Save as Custom Report" -- but every report a user generates is being saved from the instant it's created. My Reports menu is littered with quick one-time reports I don't need again, but haven't taken time to go back and delete. Why save every report, when there's already an option to Save as Custom Report for those reports a user wants to save? Why not allow reports created on the fly to be unnamed and unsaved, and require entry of a name only if and when a user wants to save the report?

Marcus, one of the issues with using register filter for ad-hoc things as you say is that it's often just too many steps: first select All Transactions, then set a date range, perhaps show a column that's now invisible in All Transactions, then search for a payee or memo -- and then undo all the filters you just set to return to "normal" operation. Whereas with an ad-hoc report, you select the criteria, see what you came for, and then close the report. But with Quicken currently, you have to name the report and it becomes a saved report which you then need to delete. Instead, like a Quicken 2007 report, it would be much better if we could set our criteria, see the result, and close it within seconds.

You ask what kind of reports. Sometimes, it's looking for a specific transaction, or type of transaction. Yesterday, I wanted to look up how much I paid the last few times I renewed a specific magazine subscription. Today, I found I'm going to have to replace my water heater. I wanted to quickly see when I bought my current one and previous one, and how much I paid. In Quicken 2007, I would do a Quick Report for Memo contains "water heater", see my desired result, and close the report in seconds. In Quicken 2018, I tried using Search. But aside from the above issues, there's a major problem with Search for those of us who have lots of data: after typing the first character, "w", in the Search box, Quicken locks up for awhile with a spinning beach ball (because it's apparently trying to build a list of all transactions containing "w"); on my newer iMac, it can take 15 seconds, whereas on my older MacBook Pro is can stall for over a minute. Sorry, that's a separate issue, but it's a big one for me. Because of this problem with Search, I try to avoid it and use reports to find things like this -- which brings me to my comments above about the annoyances with quickly creating reports.

To your question about having some canned reports: sure, that seems fine, as long as I could vary the parameters and then toss the report. The problem with the legacy QM 2015+ reports is that if you change the report parameters, those parameters stick. If you want to do an ad-hoc report like Category Summary, the next time you open Category Summary, it has to load that previous report -- which I now longer want -- before I can get to Customize to set up the parameters I want now. This is why my suggestion is to allow a user to create a new report, select their parameters, view the report, and simply close it if they don't want to save it.

smayer97

jacobs said:

Marcus, another Reports UI comment: when I create a New Report, the first thing it asks me to do is name the report. That has always seemed odd to me, as I often generate Quicken reports on the fly and don't want to save or name them. If I don't type a name, Quicken names it for me: "Category Transaction 4" or similar, which is okay. But here's the real problem: the Customize dialog box has a checkbox for "Save as Custom Report" -- but every report a user generates is being saved from the instant it's created. My Reports menu is littered with quick one-time reports I don't need again, but haven't taken time to go back and delete. Why save every report, when there's already an option to Save as Custom Report for those reports a user wants to save? Why not allow reports created on the fly to be unnamed and unsaved, and require entry of a name only if and when a user wants to save the report?

@Quicken Marcus

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for but I have outlined much of this under the Request for Customizable reporting engine IDEA thread, especially here.

There are effectively 4 types of reports that satisfy the gamut of reports that users need (aside from investment related ones):
- Transaction Detail Reports 
- Columnar  Reports (like the Category Summary reports)
- Comparison Reports (although theoretically, these could have been implemented as a subset of the Columnar reports but as it stands are implemented as a separate set in QM2018)
- "Quick Reports" (as it was once called in QM2007) - which is just a shortcut to producing a Transaction Detail report.

Part way down of that specific post (second link), I highlight canned reports that exist in QM2007. BUT these canned reports are mostly nothing more than having selection and formatting criteria pre-set for the above report types (and I agree that just like in QM2007, the pre-sets should remain modifiable).

Building on what jacobs points out, one of the limitations of "Quick Reports" is the inability to search on the Memo field (a very commonly needed usage), since in QM2018 they are currently limited to Payee, Category and Tag only (this and other remaining limitations are noted on the IDEA thread Bring back Quick Reports, here and here).

And the register filters are limited by not being able to isolate split lines, since they filter at the transaction level.

And the delay when using filters is a real deterrent. I have suggested in the past limiting the list construction to only pull up to the first 5 or so matches at any one time, if that would speed things up, though it appears like an indexing problem.

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

jacobs

jacobs said:

Marcus, another Reports UI comment: when I create a New Report, the first thing it asks me to do is name the report. That has always seemed odd to me, as I often generate Quicken reports on the fly and don't want to save or name them. If I don't type a name, Quicken names it for me: "Category Transaction 4" or similar, which is okay. But here's the real problem: the Customize dialog box has a checkbox for "Save as Custom Report" -- but every report a user generates is being saved from the instant it's created. My Reports menu is littered with quick one-time reports I don't need again, but haven't taken time to go back and delete. Why save every report, when there's already an option to Save as Custom Report for those reports a user wants to save? Why not allow reports created on the fly to be unnamed and unsaved, and require entry of a name only if and when a user wants to save the report?

Marcus, just to clarify: the Quicken 2018 Quick Reports are useful -- but not as much as Quicken 2007 QuickReports were. In Quicken 2018, if I'm looking at a transaction, I can do a Quick Report (via right-click) on that Payee or Category. That's definitely helpful in some cases. But in the examples I cited two post above this, what I often used QuickReports for in Quicken 2007 was finding a specific transaction or set of transactions. Searching the Memo/Notes is by far my most common report I do in Quicken 2007, largely because it takes only one command and entry of one parameter to do the search, and then one click to get ride of the report. In Quicken 2018, a similar search takes many more steps either as Search or creating an ad-hoc Report, as described above.

Regarding the problems with Quicken 208 Search, @smayer97 and I have shared different opinions on how to address this longstanding problem. I'm not keen on his idea of only pulling up the first 5 matching transactions -- and I'm not sure that would improve the speed if it still has to search through all transactions. Here's why: Currently, Quicken ignores the first character typed in the Search box, but as soon as the second character is detected, it tries to build search results that match all occurrences of that two-letter combination. But even if I paste in 5 or 10 characters, which results in a much smaller list of matches, there's a similar delay the first time it does a search. But a subsequent search, for something completely different, takes only a second. Whatever indexing is done the first time apparently paves the way for quick searching thereafter. So: could whatever that indexing process is be done in the background, invisible to the user, after Quicken launches? In the early Quicken 2015 days, there was a similar problem with entering Payee names in a transaction, and you solved those long delays by making several changes in how the lists of matching Payees was built -- my hope is that you can implement similar changes to the Search box in order to make Search not be something to avoid for those of us with many transactions in our database.

Richard Patterson

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled time to open.


I am running Quicken for Mac Premier 2018 on OS 10.13.4 on an iMac with a 3.4 GHz processor and 8 GB of 2400 MHz DDR4 memory.  Quicken takes 2 minutes to open, during which time the computer thinks it is not responding.  At the very least Quicken should put up a dialog with a progress bar while it does whatever it needs to do to open so that the user is not tempted to force quit it and try again (which i did frequently before I realized it was actually trying to open).

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Quicken Premier 2018 5.6.0 for the Mac is so slow it is unusable.


I upgraded to 2018 but with the latest release, Quicken 2018 for the Mac (5.6.0) takes 20-40 seconds when I try to save/update a transaction. Mac is running 10.13.3.  I tried to rename the file (didn't help), save it to a non iCloud folder (didn't help), turned off wifi (reduced time a bit but still 15 seconds per transaction). Anyone have any other suggestions?

smayer97

jacobs said:

Marcus, another Reports UI comment: when I create a New Report, the first thing it asks me to do is name the report. That has always seemed odd to me, as I often generate Quicken reports on the fly and don't want to save or name them. If I don't type a name, Quicken names it for me: "Category Transaction 4" or similar, which is okay. But here's the real problem: the Customize dialog box has a checkbox for "Save as Custom Report" -- but every report a user generates is being saved from the instant it's created. My Reports menu is littered with quick one-time reports I don't need again, but haven't taken time to go back and delete. Why save every report, when there's already an option to Save as Custom Report for those reports a user wants to save? Why not allow reports created on the fly to be unnamed and unsaved, and require entry of a name only if and when a user wants to save the report?

Sorry, on the second part regarding the filtering, I did not mean to suggest limiting the results of TRANSACTIONS to only 5 or so. I had a disconnect and was thinking about the CATEGORY list when categorizing transactions, and the old problem with the PAYEE list...so NO, I am NOT suggesting limiting search results of TRANSACTIONS in the filtered lists. That should NOT be the case. Sorry for the confusion. 

That said, I agree that there is some kind of indexing problem occurring. It is behaving as if the index is being build on the fly and cached rather than built, stored and updated as data is entered the first time. Whatever the cause, something needs to be done to address this to make it more usable.

Unknown

Not really an answer, but a workaround:  I just leave Quicken loaded and running on my Mac, so I don't have to load it to use it.

jacobs

Richard, this is a longstanding issue with Quicken for Mac. It's not a function of processor speed or RAM, although a faster Mac will open a bit faster.

Product manager Marcus posted that they did some optimization in the latest update, version 5.6. (If you still have version 5.5.7, expect to see a notice of an upgrade to version 5.6.1 sometime next week, unless they find users are encountering problems wth this update.) The good news is that they are aware this is a problem. The bad news is that the improvements they made are only a small step forward. Marcus said in the release notes to expect a modest decrease in launch time:

We’ve been focused on performance improvements throughout the product. First, we looked at launch times.  Quicken would take a while to launch if you had a file with lots of historical investment data.  You should see an improvement from 30% to 50%.  As part of this, we will also start to just download quotes for the securities you hold and not every security you’ve ever held.

In my case, the launch time dropped from about 45 seconds to about 35. Progress, but not very satisfactory. you've likely noticed that after this long launch time, if you quit Quicken and re-open it, the launch happens very quickly -- about 5 seconds in my case. The long launch delay has to do with Quicken going out to download security quotes and taking a long time to do it. I do not understand what it needs to load upon each first launch of the day that takes so long. (I also don't understand why they have stubbornly refused to put up a splash screen or progress dialog box, which I've lobbied for since back when Quicken 2015 was first in beta testing.)

My first suggestion for you is to check what version you have, and it it is not 5.6, wait until you get the next update to see how much it cuts your launch time. then, use the Report a Problem option on the Help menu to report that the launch speed is still intolerably slow and needs to be improved. If they hear from a lot of users about this, there's more chance it gets the attention of the development team. (You can also post a similar comment in this thread about Quicken 5.6.x, Marcus generally ready the comments in these release threads for the first week or so after each new release.)

I don't really recommend what @raleedy suggests to leave Quicken running all the time. First, you miss out on Quicken doing automatic backups when you quit; those backups can be a lifesaver when something inevitably goes wrong. Second, although the chances are probably pretty small, I think there's more risk of something going wrong with Quicken if it crashes (for instance, a power failure) while it's been left open and running. I try to remember to launch Quicken as I'm first sitting down at my desk to do work; then I clear the paper son the desk and get ready to work in Quicken, and often Quicken is up and running by the time I'm ready to go. (But sometimes I sit down and want to use Quicken immediately, and I curse its slow launch every time!)

smayer97

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Merging.


As an aside regarding leaving Quicken running all the time, there is one feature request that is part of the following IDEA thread that has yet to be implemented: 

4. add an option with the following choices as follows: 
- save at [most, least] 'X' times in 'Y' [hours, days]

This would trigger a backup even when Quicken is open. 

All other 3 in that thread have been implemented but Quicken Marcus thought that 4 was a good idea, but this has yet to be implemented.

You can add your VOTE to Add More Options to Automatic Back-ups.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version.

While you are at it, you may want to add your VOTE to related IDEAS found on the List of Requests for Data and File Management Features. Click on the underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas. Your VOTES matter!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

Paul3

Craig in ER said:

Still Sloooooow to Launch.  I had high hopes QM 5.6 would fix the very slow initial launch issue.  But, alas, for me it is still as slow as ever.  In fact I believe QM 5.6 is actually slower than 5.5.7 to launch - can it be possible.  I used to launch Quicken, go and brew a cup of tea in the microwave for 2 minutes 20 seconds and when I returned my file was just opening.  Now I do the same thing but when I return I still have to wait for the file to open.  I also notice that I don't get an indication that Quicken is launching.  By that I mean no bouncing dock icon, no spinning beachball, nothing - just wait and hope.  I am thinking about rolling back to 5.5.7 (because its slowness was faster) but don't know if I can since the data file was updated.  Or, I guess I will have to wait for QM 5.7 and hope the team has figured this problem out.  As a reminded this slowness is only for the initial launch after I start may computer for the day or after a restart.  Any relaunch after the initial is very fast (5-10 seconds).  What gives?

I continue to see slow startup with 5.5.7.  What Activity Monitor shows after launch is that a sqlite3 process goes active at a very low CPU utilization and sits there for 45 or more seconds. The main Quicken process, which is parent to the sqlite3 process, will sit in "Not Responding" status for while the sqlite3 process is active. The sqlite3 process will eventually ramp up to 60-85% of CPU time, then disappear, at which point the Quicken main process will hit 80%+ CPU for a moment and ONLY THEN will the Quicken interface appear.

Seems like you have some really bad contention or locking going on in the database access.

OSX 10.13.4 on a Late 2013 iMac 27".  My Quicken file goes back to 1992, with over 9,000 transaction in one checking account alone.  My backup file is 206MB.

Unknown

Craig in ER said:

Still Sloooooow to Launch.  I had high hopes QM 5.6 would fix the very slow initial launch issue.  But, alas, for me it is still as slow as ever.  In fact I believe QM 5.6 is actually slower than 5.5.7 to launch - can it be possible.  I used to launch Quicken, go and brew a cup of tea in the microwave for 2 minutes 20 seconds and when I returned my file was just opening.  Now I do the same thing but when I return I still have to wait for the file to open.  I also notice that I don't get an indication that Quicken is launching.  By that I mean no bouncing dock icon, no spinning beachball, nothing - just wait and hope.  I am thinking about rolling back to 5.5.7 (because its slowness was faster) but don't know if I can since the data file was updated.  Or, I guess I will have to wait for QM 5.7 and hope the team has figured this problem out.  As a reminded this slowness is only for the initial launch after I start may computer for the day or after a restart.  Any relaunch after the initial is very fast (5-10 seconds).  What gives?

I checked Activity Monitor and Quicken goes to 100.3% (go figure) and I sometimes see  sqlite3.  I also get the Quicken not responding for a bit.

RCinNJ

jacobs said:

Richard, this is a longstanding issue with Quicken for Mac. It's not a function of processor speed or RAM, although a faster Mac will open a bit faster.

Product manager Marcus posted that they did some optimization in the latest update, version 5.6. (If you still have version 5.5.7, expect to see a notice of an upgrade to version 5.6.1 sometime next week, unless they find users are encountering problems wth this update.) The good news is that they are aware this is a problem. The bad news is that the improvements they made are only a small step forward. Marcus said in the release notes to expect a modest decrease in launch time:

We’ve been focused on performance improvements throughout the product. First, we looked at launch times.  Quicken would take a while to launch if you had a file with lots of historical investment data.  You should see an improvement from 30% to 50%.  As part of this, we will also start to just download quotes for the securities you hold and not every security you’ve ever held.

In my case, the launch time dropped from about 45 seconds to about 35. Progress, but not very satisfactory. you've likely noticed that after this long launch time, if you quit Quicken and re-open it, the launch happens very quickly -- about 5 seconds in my case. The long launch delay has to do with Quicken going out to download security quotes and taking a long time to do it. I do not understand what it needs to load upon each first launch of the day that takes so long. (I also don't understand why they have stubbornly refused to put up a splash screen or progress dialog box, which I've lobbied for since back when Quicken 2015 was first in beta testing.)

My first suggestion for you is to check what version you have, and it it is not 5.6, wait until you get the next update to see how much it cuts your launch time. then, use the Report a Problem option on the Help menu to report that the launch speed is still intolerably slow and needs to be improved. If they hear from a lot of users about this, there's more chance it gets the attention of the development team. (You can also post a similar comment in this thread about Quicken 5.6.x, Marcus generally ready the comments in these release threads for the first week or so after each new release.)

I don't really recommend what @raleedy suggests to leave Quicken running all the time. First, you miss out on Quicken doing automatic backups when you quit; those backups can be a lifesaver when something inevitably goes wrong. Second, although the chances are probably pretty small, I think there's more risk of something going wrong with Quicken if it crashes (for instance, a power failure) while it's been left open and running. I try to remember to launch Quicken as I'm first sitting down at my desk to do work; then I clear the paper son the desk and get ready to work in Quicken, and often Quicken is up and running by the time I'm ready to go. (But sometimes I sit down and want to use Quicken immediately, and I curse its slow launch every time!)I'd also suggest unchecking "Investment quotes: Automatically download" if this is turned on in Preferences. I found this slows down opening, and I'd rather get up and running and wait until I update all my accounts, or choose to update just quotes from an Investment account window.

Truthfully, I don't know why this exists. Do people really want to have their investments checked as soon as QM opens, as opposed to checking all their accounts? Maybe the Preference is confusing because it makes it sound like QM will not download investment quotes any time you do an Accounts Update?

Unknown

jacobs said:

Richard, this is a longstanding issue with Quicken for Mac. It's not a function of processor speed or RAM, although a faster Mac will open a bit faster.

Product manager Marcus posted that they did some optimization in the latest update, version 5.6. (If you still have version 5.5.7, expect to see a notice of an upgrade to version 5.6.1 sometime next week, unless they find users are encountering problems wth this update.) The good news is that they are aware this is a problem. The bad news is that the improvements they made are only a small step forward. Marcus said in the release notes to expect a modest decrease in launch time:

We’ve been focused on performance improvements throughout the product. First, we looked at launch times.  Quicken would take a while to launch if you had a file with lots of historical investment data.  You should see an improvement from 30% to 50%.  As part of this, we will also start to just download quotes for the securities you hold and not every security you’ve ever held.

In my case, the launch time dropped from about 45 seconds to about 35. Progress, but not very satisfactory. you've likely noticed that after this long launch time, if you quit Quicken and re-open it, the launch happens very quickly -- about 5 seconds in my case. The long launch delay has to do with Quicken going out to download security quotes and taking a long time to do it. I do not understand what it needs to load upon each first launch of the day that takes so long. (I also don't understand why they have stubbornly refused to put up a splash screen or progress dialog box, which I've lobbied for since back when Quicken 2015 was first in beta testing.)

My first suggestion for you is to check what version you have, and it it is not 5.6, wait until you get the next update to see how much it cuts your launch time. then, use the Report a Problem option on the Help menu to report that the launch speed is still intolerably slow and needs to be improved. If they hear from a lot of users about this, there's more chance it gets the attention of the development team. (You can also post a similar comment in this thread about Quicken 5.6.x, Marcus generally ready the comments in these release threads for the first week or so after each new release.)

I don't really recommend what @raleedy suggests to leave Quicken running all the time. First, you miss out on Quicken doing automatic backups when you quit; those backups can be a lifesaver when something inevitably goes wrong. Second, although the chances are probably pretty small, I think there's more risk of something going wrong with Quicken if it crashes (for instance, a power failure) while it's been left open and running. I try to remember to launch Quicken as I'm first sitting down at my desk to do work; then I clear the paper son the desk and get ready to work in Quicken, and often Quicken is up and running by the time I'm ready to go. (But sometimes I sit down and want to use Quicken immediately, and I curse its slow launch every time!)Thanks for the suggestion about not automatically updating stock quotes but that is not the issue.  I had already unchecked it.  The issue with start taking forever is a problem but not as much as having EVERY transaction take 20-40 sec to save. If it is a linked transaction, it takes double the time.  This happens even if my WiFi is off.

Unknown

Franklin Seal said:

After the 5.6 update, it broke my ability to download transactions from my bank. I waited a few days to see if it was just a momentary glitch. When the problem continued, it was the weekend, so I used the chat support. They acknowledged that the problem was the update, and told me that I'd receive an email when a fix was found. I waited an additional day, then had another chat. Same thing.

Today, having waited for a fix and not having received anything from Quicken, I called, since it was Monday. The very helpful woman said that the fix had been found yesterday, and that it involved exporting the data file, deleting that install, and then downloading the software again, and re-importing --- all basically to "rollback" to the previous update. So, she walked me through that process.

But, she acknowledged, she did not know of any attempt to send out emails to people, like myself, who'd called in or had chat sessions.

Along the way, we discovered that although the export / import process did save much of the data, certain things were lost:

All my transaction download settings had to be re-setup from scratch (about a 20 min process, since I had multiple accounts.)

In the process, we discovered that the auto loan account was essentially starting from scratch, and all transaction history for my auto loan account was lost.

Also, certain transactions in my checking account, like the original balance, were lost. I had to cheat by creating an adjustment transaction to get it to balance.

Also, my entire budget history was lost. Gone. All my previous months and years of budgets --- poof!

HUGE bonehead move on the part of Quicken. I can't imagine the hell you guys must be going through if millions of customers have suffered similar data loss.

i'd join a class action lawsuit, if one got going.

Marcus, In looking at the contents of the Quicken data package file I notice I have "data iMac's conflicted copy 2014-09-21" and 14 other rather large "conflicted data" files all from 2017. These total over 1 GB. Somewhere in this thread I saw that these were a hold-over from the past and the new version would delete them. Because of all the problems, I haven't updated to 5.6.1 yet. Can I safely just delete these data files in the expanded package?

Mike Lane

Mike Lane said:

Still watching for a correct to the traded options display.  The options cost basis on portfolio view is 100 times the entry in transaction view.  Transactions are entered cost per option.  After entry each option converts to 100 shares each.  The cost in transaction is adjusted.  However in portfolio the shares are multiplied by the option price. A $300 cost becomes $30,000 cost.  I don't enter options anymore until the contracts are closed or expire.  Disappointed again but appreciate the other improvements. 

Update on opening and closing portfolio graph.  I installed 5.6.1 today.  Graph starting point is no longer zero - Thanks.  

Here is what I have noticed on opening and closing graph.  The graph doesn't follow the cursor as I move to open and close.  For example, I click and hold the border, then drag.  If you move short distance (less than half of the graph height, the graph border does not follow the cursor.  I moved short distance and waited and nothing, then move half the height of graph and it snaps closed.  Same reaction on opening.  It appears it has preset height and not variable. This is an observation to help those like me that expected the border to drag along as I move the cursor.

Mike Lane

Mike Lane said:

Still watching for a correct to the traded options display.  The options cost basis on portfolio view is 100 times the entry in transaction view.  Transactions are entered cost per option.  After entry each option converts to 100 shares each.  The cost in transaction is adjusted.  However in portfolio the shares are multiplied by the option price. A $300 cost becomes $30,000 cost.  I don't enter options anymore until the contracts are closed or expire.  Disappointed again but appreciate the other improvements. 

RickO -Makes sense.  To test and clarify.  Opening graph I drag cursor down holding down mouse.  If I drag to the top of the first security in the portfolio list the beach ball appears and graph appears - time about 5 sec.  However if I drag and hold only to the bottom of the column labels no beach ball after 30 sec.  

Now it is open.  To make smaller - click and hold -drag up to just touch base of graph above the date labels - hold for 45sec - no beach ball -no movement.  Drag up into graph about 1/4 height - 1 min - no ball -no movement.  Drag up into graph half way and graph closes instantly.  Tried this a few times.  

There appears to be a minimum height.  When I open the graph to the minimum height, I have no problem dragging down and making the graph bigger.  The graph follows the cursor.  Next when I move cursor up graph stops at that minimum height then as continue the cursor up, the graph snaps shut at the halfway point.

Thanks, your comment helped me with how my graph is functioning.  I don't know if graph could be shorter before 5.6,  It wasn't something I moved very often until 5.6 started graph at zero.  

Mike Lane

5.6.1 Quick find/report in investments not working for security names.
Right click on a transaction and at popup menu appears with both find and report options.  The options to report on the security name does not display any results.  However if the name is "payee" as in payment/deposit type transaction the find/report functions work fine.  

The find option will fill the search box upper right with the security name but no results will display until you click the drop down on the search box and select "all visible columns" or "security/payee".  If the transaction type is payment/deposit then the find option immediately displays results for the payee.

However if you type a security name in the search box there are immediate results as you type.

RCinNJ

Mike Lane said:

5.6.1 Quick find/report in investments not working for security names.
Right click on a transaction and at popup menu appears with both find and report options.  The options to report on the security name does not display any results.  However if the name is "payee" as in payment/deposit type transaction the find/report functions work fine.  

The find option will fill the search box upper right with the security name but no results will display until you click the drop down on the search box and select "all visible columns" or "security/payee".  If the transaction type is payment/deposit then the find option immediately displays results for the payee.

However if you type a security name in the search box there are immediate results as you type.

Mike, I believe I'm seeing what you describe in 5.6.0. Did it used to work, or is this one of the things that was supposed to be fixed in 5.6.1?

Thanks for the catch that choosing "all visible columns" reveals the transactions.

Mike Lane

Mike Lane said:

5.6.1 Quick find/report in investments not working for security names.
Right click on a transaction and at popup menu appears with both find and report options.  The options to report on the security name does not display any results.  However if the name is "payee" as in payment/deposit type transaction the find/report functions work fine.  

The find option will fill the search box upper right with the security name but no results will display until you click the drop down on the search box and select "all visible columns" or "security/payee".  If the transaction type is payment/deposit then the find option immediately displays results for the payee.

However if you type a security name in the search box there are immediate results as you type.

It might have been before 5.6, but I don't recall seeing the problem before.  At first I thought it was because there was a delay but screens are faster now.  

"all visible columns" is workaround for find but I don't have one for report option.

Mike Lane

s2kdriver said:

Very nice printing improvements for the Portfolio view - thank you.  I particularly like the CSV export capability to format the report in Excel according to personal needs.  This is a good addition.

However, I am disappointed that two major issues still remain in the investments area:

1. Remove shares is still treated as a capital loss, and this negatively affects the Performance measurements (IRR, ROI) and the capital gains report.  From my perspective this is a major defect since Remove shares and Add shares is Quicken's recommended method to move shares between accounts, and is also the mechanism to handle security exchanges within an account.  This defect can turn a positively performing security and account into a loss position, and as a result the performance measurements for the account can go permanently negative because of this.  It makes IRR & ROI measurements permanently useless for that security and account, as well as impacting performance roll-ups at the Brokerage, Retirement, and Education investment category levels.

2. Adjusted Cost Base (or average cost) has not been added as a cost basis method for securities.  FIFO and LIFO are not valid cost basis methods for Canadian taxpayers. Other Canadian features in the product have been very good so far, but this remaining issue is a real limiter.  Unless you take extreme measures to manually calculate and implement an ACB method using the custom lots feature, the product does not report correct gain/loss amounts.  Canadian users typically have to calculate their cost base using other methods outside of the product (e.g. Excel).  This is a shame and removes value from the product for Canadian users.  I don't think I am alone in this request.

Perhaps there was insufficient time to deal with these issues in the 5.6 release.  I am still hopeful that Quicken will address these problems within a reasonable time as part of upcoming releases.

S2kdriver, Your comments on Add/Remove bring up several thoughtful issues. I’ll confess I don’t use any Q IRR calculation.  I do my own analysis outside Q and treat all transfers of securities at market.  This is so I can calculate IRR/ROR on each account individually as well as all accounts as a single portfolio. 

1.    Problem 1. you propose treating a remove shares as a sale at cost.  Followed by a removal/transfer of cash which offsets an add shares at the original cost in the new account.   I agree this maintains integrity of IRR calculations when the accounts are analyzed combined.  But a transfer between accounts at any value will give same IRR. As long as the valuations are the same they wash out.

Calculating IRR for a single account requires removal at market value. Otherwise you have an investment over a period of time that had no earnings if removed at cost.  This would skew the results.   As you point out zero doesn’t work either.  I had a transfer last year between taxable accounts and the removal did show up on the tax report as a capital gain for the basis of the stock (like it was sold at $0. as you point out).  I just ignored / deleted the transaction when reconciling the 1099b with capital gains. 

Sometimes a user may want to look at performance of one account such as in a situation where broker a fee is to be measured against account performance.  In this case user would want to transfer out at market value without a taxable transaction on the Q tax report.  “ADD” transactions allow entry of original purchase date and basis.  This is manual and complicated if there are many dividend reinvestments or purchases you want to track. But is manageable in most cases.   A “REMOVE” transaction format could mirror the ADD allowing the user to put in desired value of removal for IRR/ROR calculations.  But a key would be to allow a check box to exclude from tax report. I find the tax report more important to me than Q ROR calculations but that is because I handle that separately.

 A real life situation where a market value transfer would actually be required is a transfer of shares from a tax exempt account (401k, IRA, etc) in taxable transaction to a Roth IRA or to a taxable account.   It would not matter for transfers between taxable accounts except for how you prefer to calculate IRR and even less important between tax sheltered accounts (except maybe as basis in an annuity).  

2.    The second problem was about returns on individual holdings.  If I understand your suggestion it is to treat add and remove by lot.  Sounds right as long as there aren’t numerous transactions to adjust out when reconciling to 1099b.  From a practical standpoint I’m not sure how complicated this can be or how often this is a material part of a portfolio unless a full account is transferred.   I did have a client that participated in an employee stock purchase plan.  He made fractional stock purchases week from paycheck and the company paid and reinvested dividends monthly.  There were hundreds of small transactions. 

3.    Final problem – was about returns at the account level which I refer back to my comments on #1. I think we are on same page here about removal at market value.   I just don’t think a simulated cash transaction is necessary if removal and add use the same entry format and the market value is used for the ROR calculations.  Also any transaction entry should allow an election to exclude from tax report. 

Hope I have added something to the discussion. 

Unknown

opt said:

I have Qmac 2018 premier, and vers 5.6
This am the app is shutting down when I try to 'mark as paid' a recurring note payment. I also discovered the loan term was also changed on 2 of my loans.
Other Bills do not seem to be affected.
I was unable to fix the issue, and had to covert the loan to a liability so I could post the payment.

The loans are not ebills. I did send the crash report. I clicked the round circle next to the loan in 'bills' to change the amount and mark as paid. Now the transaction is 'locked' and sends me to the transfer account. Well that is no help either. When I try to delete the bill pay series, the app instantly closes.

Quicken Marcus

Mike Lane said:

5.6.1 Quick find/report in investments not working for security names.
Right click on a transaction and at popup menu appears with both find and report options.  The options to report on the security name does not display any results.  However if the name is "payee" as in payment/deposit type transaction the find/report functions work fine.  

The find option will fill the search box upper right with the security name but no results will display until you click the drop down on the search box and select "all visible columns" or "security/payee".  If the transaction type is payment/deposit then the find option immediately displays results for the payee.

However if you type a security name in the search box there are immediate results as you type.

Unfortunately, this has never worked ever since we added those menu items in 2017.  We were just discussing what we should do with them since it may be time-consuming to fix and I'm not sure it's the highest priority to fix them.  You can just type the security name in the Find box to filter to just that security.  Is fixing this more important than performance improvements or a cross-tab report with categories vs tags.  There are always trade-offs.  I was thinking we would just disable them for now since they don't work until we can loop back to fix them.

Quicken Marcus

smayer97 (QM2007, CDN user since '92) said:

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Merging.


As an aside regarding leaving Quicken running all the time, there is one feature request that is part of the following IDEA thread that has yet to be implemented: 

4. add an option with the following choices as follows: 
- save at [most, least] 'X' times in 'Y' [hours, days]

This would trigger a backup even when Quicken is open. 

All other 3 in that thread have been implemented but Quicken Marcus thought that 4 was a good idea, but this has yet to be implemented.

You can add your VOTE to Add More Options to Automatic Back-ups.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version.

While you are at it, you may want to add your VOTE to related IDEAS found on the List of Requests for Data and File Management Features. Click on the underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas. Your VOTES matter!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

smayer97, since 3 have already been implemented it might make sense to close that one and to open a new one just for this specific backup feature request. This way it rises on its own merits. Anyway, that's how we think of it.  We consider these types of features great for interns and unfortunately, we didn't get one this Summer so it's less likely we'll do it this year.  But if we had one,, the likelihood of adding it would go up.

Quicken Marcus

jacobs said:

Richard, this is a longstanding issue with Quicken for Mac. It's not a function of processor speed or RAM, although a faster Mac will open a bit faster.

Product manager Marcus posted that they did some optimization in the latest update, version 5.6. (If you still have version 5.5.7, expect to see a notice of an upgrade to version 5.6.1 sometime next week, unless they find users are encountering problems wth this update.) The good news is that they are aware this is a problem. The bad news is that the improvements they made are only a small step forward. Marcus said in the release notes to expect a modest decrease in launch time:

We’ve been focused on performance improvements throughout the product. First, we looked at launch times.  Quicken would take a while to launch if you had a file with lots of historical investment data.  You should see an improvement from 30% to 50%.  As part of this, we will also start to just download quotes for the securities you hold and not every security you’ve ever held.

In my case, the launch time dropped from about 45 seconds to about 35. Progress, but not very satisfactory. you've likely noticed that after this long launch time, if you quit Quicken and re-open it, the launch happens very quickly -- about 5 seconds in my case. The long launch delay has to do with Quicken going out to download security quotes and taking a long time to do it. I do not understand what it needs to load upon each first launch of the day that takes so long. (I also don't understand why they have stubbornly refused to put up a splash screen or progress dialog box, which I've lobbied for since back when Quicken 2015 was first in beta testing.)

My first suggestion for you is to check what version you have, and it it is not 5.6, wait until you get the next update to see how much it cuts your launch time. then, use the Report a Problem option on the Help menu to report that the launch speed is still intolerably slow and needs to be improved. If they hear from a lot of users about this, there's more chance it gets the attention of the development team. (You can also post a similar comment in this thread about Quicken 5.6.x, Marcus generally ready the comments in these release threads for the first week or so after each new release.)

I don't really recommend what @raleedy suggests to leave Quicken running all the time. First, you miss out on Quicken doing automatic backups when you quit; those backups can be a lifesaver when something inevitably goes wrong. Second, although the chances are probably pretty small, I think there's more risk of something going wrong with Quicken if it crashes (for instance, a power failure) while it's been left open and running. I try to remember to launch Quicken as I'm first sitting down at my desk to do work; then I clear the paper son the desk and get ready to work in Quicken, and often Quicken is up and running by the time I'm ready to go. (But sometimes I sit down and want to use Quicken immediately, and I curse its slow launch every time!)Katherine, saving transactions is typically very fast so something else is going on.  Do you have any other windows open like the Portfolio View with the chart?  Are you running out of hard drive space?  I personally am not aware of an issue with transaction saving. 

jacobs, in 5.7 we'll be popping up a little dialog that tells you Quicken is starting so you at least know that the app has launched.  It serves the same purpose as a splash screen.  Also, when you relaunch I think the OS cache's the app so it launches faster.  I don't think Quicken Mac is doing anything special.

Concordman

Mike Lane said:

5.6.1 Quick find/report in investments not working for security names.
Right click on a transaction and at popup menu appears with both find and report options.  The options to report on the security name does not display any results.  However if the name is "payee" as in payment/deposit type transaction the find/report functions work fine.  

The find option will fill the search box upper right with the security name but no results will display until you click the drop down on the search box and select "all visible columns" or "security/payee".  If the transaction type is payment/deposit then the find option immediately displays results for the payee.

However if you type a security name in the search box there are immediate results as you type.

Agree with RickO, Fix after the more important stuff is running properly

Mike Lane

Mike Lane said:

5.6.1 Quick find/report in investments not working for security names.
Right click on a transaction and at popup menu appears with both find and report options.  The options to report on the security name does not display any results.  However if the name is "payee" as in payment/deposit type transaction the find/report functions work fine.  

The find option will fill the search box upper right with the security name but no results will display until you click the drop down on the search box and select "all visible columns" or "security/payee".  If the transaction type is payment/deposit then the find option immediately displays results for the payee.

However if you type a security name in the search box there are immediate results as you type.

It is not high priority for me.  
 One observation about the find box.  It works relatively fast displaying as I type.  But unlike common search boxes you must be exact.  For example if you were trying to find all transactions with CALL and TEVA.  You can't just type both words. CALL TEVA will not bring up entries written as TEVA CALL.  The first character typed that is not in sequence in the item drops results.  It is not a big issue. If you have a long word like pharmaceutical in multiple securities.  You type "pharma" and you get all of them. Next you type a space "pharma " and you get none of them.  If you get back to this, you might consider the find function also. 

jacobs

jacobs said:

Richard, this is a longstanding issue with Quicken for Mac. It's not a function of processor speed or RAM, although a faster Mac will open a bit faster.

Product manager Marcus posted that they did some optimization in the latest update, version 5.6. (If you still have version 5.5.7, expect to see a notice of an upgrade to version 5.6.1 sometime next week, unless they find users are encountering problems wth this update.) The good news is that they are aware this is a problem. The bad news is that the improvements they made are only a small step forward. Marcus said in the release notes to expect a modest decrease in launch time:

We’ve been focused on performance improvements throughout the product. First, we looked at launch times.  Quicken would take a while to launch if you had a file with lots of historical investment data.  You should see an improvement from 30% to 50%.  As part of this, we will also start to just download quotes for the securities you hold and not every security you’ve ever held.

In my case, the launch time dropped from about 45 seconds to about 35. Progress, but not very satisfactory. you've likely noticed that after this long launch time, if you quit Quicken and re-open it, the launch happens very quickly -- about 5 seconds in my case. The long launch delay has to do with Quicken going out to download security quotes and taking a long time to do it. I do not understand what it needs to load upon each first launch of the day that takes so long. (I also don't understand why they have stubbornly refused to put up a splash screen or progress dialog box, which I've lobbied for since back when Quicken 2015 was first in beta testing.)

My first suggestion for you is to check what version you have, and it it is not 5.6, wait until you get the next update to see how much it cuts your launch time. then, use the Report a Problem option on the Help menu to report that the launch speed is still intolerably slow and needs to be improved. If they hear from a lot of users about this, there's more chance it gets the attention of the development team. (You can also post a similar comment in this thread about Quicken 5.6.x, Marcus generally ready the comments in these release threads for the first week or so after each new release.)

I don't really recommend what @raleedy suggests to leave Quicken running all the time. First, you miss out on Quicken doing automatic backups when you quit; those backups can be a lifesaver when something inevitably goes wrong. Second, although the chances are probably pretty small, I think there's more risk of something going wrong with Quicken if it crashes (for instance, a power failure) while it's been left open and running. I try to remember to launch Quicken as I'm first sitting down at my desk to do work; then I clear the paper son the desk and get ready to work in Quicken, and often Quicken is up and running by the time I'm ready to go. (But sometimes I sit down and want to use Quicken immediately, and I curse its slow launch every time!)Marcus, I'm confused by your comment just above. You seem to be saying that the time we're waiting for Quicken to launch is just the time it takes Quicken to launch -- unless it was launched recently and was cached by the OS, enabling it to launch in a fraction of the time? But if that's the case, why do people report such widely varying launch times? Does it make sense that Quicken takes 30 seconds for some users, as much as 2 minutes for other users, and it's just the time it takes Quicken to load irrespective of the size/number or transactions in the data file?

Mike Lane

jacobs said:

Richard, this is a longstanding issue with Quicken for Mac. It's not a function of processor speed or RAM, although a faster Mac will open a bit faster.

Product manager Marcus posted that they did some optimization in the latest update, version 5.6. (If you still have version 5.5.7, expect to see a notice of an upgrade to version 5.6.1 sometime next week, unless they find users are encountering problems wth this update.) The good news is that they are aware this is a problem. The bad news is that the improvements they made are only a small step forward. Marcus said in the release notes to expect a modest decrease in launch time:

We’ve been focused on performance improvements throughout the product. First, we looked at launch times.  Quicken would take a while to launch if you had a file with lots of historical investment data.  You should see an improvement from 30% to 50%.  As part of this, we will also start to just download quotes for the securities you hold and not every security you’ve ever held.

In my case, the launch time dropped from about 45 seconds to about 35. Progress, but not very satisfactory. you've likely noticed that after this long launch time, if you quit Quicken and re-open it, the launch happens very quickly -- about 5 seconds in my case. The long launch delay has to do with Quicken going out to download security quotes and taking a long time to do it. I do not understand what it needs to load upon each first launch of the day that takes so long. (I also don't understand why they have stubbornly refused to put up a splash screen or progress dialog box, which I've lobbied for since back when Quicken 2015 was first in beta testing.)

My first suggestion for you is to check what version you have, and it it is not 5.6, wait until you get the next update to see how much it cuts your launch time. then, use the Report a Problem option on the Help menu to report that the launch speed is still intolerably slow and needs to be improved. If they hear from a lot of users about this, there's more chance it gets the attention of the development team. (You can also post a similar comment in this thread about Quicken 5.6.x, Marcus generally ready the comments in these release threads for the first week or so after each new release.)

I don't really recommend what @raleedy suggests to leave Quicken running all the time. First, you miss out on Quicken doing automatic backups when you quit; those backups can be a lifesaver when something inevitably goes wrong. Second, although the chances are probably pretty small, I think there's more risk of something going wrong with Quicken if it crashes (for instance, a power failure) while it's been left open and running. I try to remember to launch Quicken as I'm first sitting down at my desk to do work; then I clear the paper son the desk and get ready to work in Quicken, and often Quicken is up and running by the time I'm ready to go. (But sometimes I sit down and want to use Quicken immediately, and I curse its slow launch every time!)Just for comparison to open QMac 5.6.1:  After cold machine boot this morning, it took 11 sec to load the Q password window then 4 sec after password to open Q. - No beachball -No spinning update circle.
 Macbook is 2013, 2.3GHz, 16GB, Flash drive 500GB w/327GB free, OS 10.13.4.  Background operations open are WiFi, Dropbox, WD MyCloud sync, Adobe services, and Sophos antivirus.  Q file size 171mb.  69 active investment securities with preference to auto download quotes on.  The time from Q Password login to open Q is 4 sec.
I shut down Q, opened Excel, Word, Mail, Safari - restart Q- 5 sec to pw window, 4 sec to load after entering PW.  Difference 6 sec faster on restart to PW window. 
 
Besides drive space and type - there could be a hog running in the background.  I suggest looking at the activity monitor for clues.

Concordman

Just downloaded 5.6.1 this AM. have been using 5.5.7 until today. Banking & Credit Card info all good,  investment data not so good. On bond &  mutual fund accounts missing cost basis info on many securities. The cost basis column now shows the add cost hyperlink. Tried to restore previous 5.5.7 file, did not solve the issue. Got on with Quicken support very nice fellow , very supportive, understood & agreed with what transpired.  He generated a case # & elevated this to tier 2 support. Have retreated back to the safety of 5.5.7 until this is resolved.