Quicken Mobile and Discover Card account

tompfr

Hi, I am using Quicken Premier 2019 <R18.15> on Windows 10. I have recently been trying to get Quicken Mobile working so that I can use the Quicken App on Android (as well as via a web browser at app.quicken.com). I have been successful in doing that will all my accounts, with the single exception of my Discover Card account. 

As background, I have been using using Quicken's 'Direct Connect' connection method to download transactions into Quicken for years and years with no problem (except very occasional blips which usually self correct by trying later). But now, I cannot get Discover Card to work with Quicken Mobile & Web, even though it continues to work fine when I do my normal OSU (One Step Updates).

Here's what happens when I try to set up the Discover Card account on the Mobile & Web tab in Quicken.

1) On the Mobile & Web tab, I go into Account Settings, which opens the Edit Account Settings window, and then check the box for the Discover card.The password box there is pre-filled (from password vault), but I have also tried manually typing it in, it makes no difference.

2) I select Update Accounts. All other accounts process successfully, but Discover Card fails with the error code CC-501, and the error message "I'm sorry, the system is unavailable right now, please try again later".

3) This has been happening on repeated attempts for 3 days now, and all the while, the same Discover Card account continues to update without a glitch when I run the normal OSU, which uses the same login credentials from the password vault.

Has anyone else run into this problem, or a similar one, or have any suggestions for resolving it? My other accounts all are working fine, and the correct data from them is showing up on the Quicken app, as well as on app.quicken.com. But for now, I have to keep the Discover Card de-selected on Mobile & Web.

Any help on this will be much appreciated
Thanks, Tom

tompfr

As a test, I created a brand new Quicken data file (different name), and then created a Discover Card account as the only account in the new data file. I was then able to successfully activate transaction downloads AND also set up the account on the Mobile & Web with no problems whatsoever. This is the same Discover Card account that was giving me problems in my regular (old) data file.

A couple things I noticed; The Discover Card transaction download in the new data file is using Express Web Connect (by default) with no option to "improve" the connection method to Direct Connect. And the Financial Institution name is now "Discover Card Account Center" (by default) in the new data file, while it is "Discover Card" in the old data file. 

I set up the Discover Card transaction download in the old data file about 15 years ago, and it looks to me like there have been some changes at Discover since then, which are leading to the problem I'm having getting Discover Card to work with Mobile & Web. 

In any case, it looks like in order to get Mobile & Web working with Discover in my regular data file, I will have to create the account from scratch. I did try just changing the connection method to Express Web Connect, but the transaction download stopped working until I switched back to Direct Connect. And it doesn't appear possible to change the FI name on an existing account.

So I'll probably try renaming the old Discover account (to preserve the transaction history), and then start from scratch with a new account, which by default should set up with Express Web Connect and Discover Card Account Center as the FI name.

If anyone knows an easier/better way to do this, please feel free to bring it to my attention..

Thanks, Tom

tompfr

I solved this problem by "re-adding" the Discover Card account using the following steps:

1) Deactivated the existing Discover Card account (from the Online Services tab of the Account Details dialog). 

2) Re-added the Discover Card account as if I was creating a new account, but WITHOUT first deleting existing Discover Card account.

3) To do this, I used the normal Add Account procedure, and chose the Discover Card Account Center as the FI.

4) The critical step while re-adding the account was to LINK the new account to the already existing Discover Card account, rather than "add" it. This is done by selecting the "Link To Existing Account" option from the "Add" drop down box on the "Add Credit Card Account" dialog window, and then choosing the existing Discover Card account to link to. By default the "Add" option is selected, which would create a duplicate account.

Doing the above did not affect any of the existing transactions in the account, and adding the account to Mobile & Web worked fine the first time.

The account now uses Express Web Connect for transaction downloads (rather than Direct Connect), which is of no consequence at all for a credit card account where you just want to download transactions and account balance.

I also want to say that I learned how to do this by watching the video at the link below. Towards the end of that video, it goes through the steps I described above. So many thanks to "The Quicken Guy" who created this video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi8_lNbLU-I

smirussell

Thanks very much for this.  I had the very same issue with my Discover Card account and your solution worked for me as well.  I agree, the video from "The Quicken Guy" is very good.  While it wasn't addressing exactly the same problem we had, it is very clear on addressing problems where accounts won't connect online and the solution ultimately fixed the syncing problem for the web and mobile apps.  I've see similar instructions before but never figured out exactly where the "link" vs "add" step took place - a key piece of information.  Now I know.

tompfr

Happy to hear that it worked for you also.

Also FWIW, I have since discovered the Quicken support page linked to below which details the same procedure that the video does. 

Reactivating a Deactivated Account
https://www.quicken.com/support/reactivating-deactivated-account