Quicken Updates Contain Outdated Fidir and FIBlueprint Files Causing Connection Issues

markus1957

The flurry of recent patch releases amplifies an issue caused by outdated files being included in the updates, including the Mondo patches available for troubleshooting and manual updating.  To maintain connections with financial institutions, Quicken periodically updates fidir.txt and fiblueprint.xml as part of the One Step Update (OSU) process. There may more files or tables affected beyond the two mentioned.

Another file, fidir.ini stores the last date a user performed an OSU; this file is not normally replaced in an update.

The connection problems arise when a user has already performed an OSU on the day a patch or update is pushed to users or the user installs the Mondo patch hoping to solve an issue.  The patch contains copies of these critical files that are days or weeks old; depending on when the patch files were assembled.  If any changes were made to a particular FI, those files don't get updated until at least the next day when OSU is run.  That is because fidir.ini is erroneously telling the software, it doesn't need to look for file updates because it already checked for updated files that day.

The simple fix Quicken could implement for updates is to also replace fidir.ini with an old file along with the other 2 files mentioned.  That way when the user runs OSU, all the critical files needed for connecting to the various FI's will get updated.

The workaround if you find you have a connection issue for an FI that you didn't have before the update is to locate fidir.ini and change the date to a few weeks ago, then save the file.  The next OSU will update the outdated FI connection files causing the problem.