Why do I get Quicken 2016 startup error?

John Garate

I'm using Quicken 2016 on Windows 10 PC. Every time I start the program I get the error message "Unable to check for updates, the server file has failed to load. We are unable to contact Quicken server.....". I suspect Quicken is no longer supporting version 2016. How can I stop the error message?

John Garate

Chris_QPW: I set Periodic update period to 0 and that seems to have solved the problem, at least for the last half dozen starts. Thanks for your help.

GeoffG

Check that you are on the latest release. I see it should be R19.5. If not, you can download from here.

Quicken Patches

John Garate

Yes, I'm using R19.5

Chris_QPW

Does this block you from using Quicken?

NotACPA

All ability to download into QW2016 ended on 4/30/19, about 3.5 years after the product was first released.

You should have, in the months leading up to 4/30, received MULTIPLE emails about this discontinuation of service.

Here it is again:https://www.quicken.com/support/quicken-discontinuation-policy

Chris_QPW

NotACPA said:

All ability to download into QW2016 ended on 4/30/19, about 3.5 years after the product was first released.

You should have, in the months leading up to 4/30, received MULTIPLE emails about this discontinuation of service.

Here it is again:https://www.quicken.com/support/quicken-discontinuation-policy

This isn't about downloading transactions, it is about getting this error message at startup.  Quicken does check at startup for updates and such even in the old versions, they never have turned these off even after the support expires.

Chris_QPW

I can answer my own question.  As it turns out I had Quicken 2016 installed on my "test machine" and got the same error at start up (and it does stop Quicken from running).   Note that I closed that, and started again and this time it started.  This is consistent with the fact that Quicken checks for updates every few days, so once the check had be "registered" it won't do it again for a few days.

There is a way to fix this.  At least it seems to have worked in my test.

With File Explorer go to: C:\ProgramData\Intuit\Quicken\Config

Double click on Quicken.ini to edit it.

Change "Periodic_update_period" to 0.

This seems to turn it off.

Note the test for that was to leave it at 4 (which is what it was set to)

and change the "Periodic_last_update" to a date more than 4 days into the past and then start Quicken and see it get the error.  With it set to 0 it doesn't get the error so I'm guessing that all the checking is disabled too.

John Garate

Chris_QPW: I set Periodic update period to 0 and that seems to have solved the problem, at least for the last half dozen starts. Thanks for your help.