Will working on live QDF file on OneDrive or DropBox be a problem? On which? or Both?

Patrick Larkin

Hi,
I have recently upgraded from 2017 to 2020 quicken for windows. I'm on Win 8.1. For a long time I've kept my QDF files on Dropbox, used the internal backup tool to save it on OneDrive. Now, when I say I kept my QDF files on Dropbox, I don't actually operate on them there. I have a script which copies the file to a local directory, runs qw.exe, and on exit copies it back to Dropbox. The script is not perfect though.

I'm wondering if Dropbox, OneDrive or Quicken have improved enough in Spring 2020 to safely just leave the QDF file on one or the other and run qw.exe directly on it. One of my QDFs is 142MB, and takes a while to sync UP to any cloud.

Sherlock

Quicken for Windows is implemented on a single user proprietary database.  Data sharing utilities like Dropbox and OneDrive interfere with Quicken's assumptions regarding the database and may lead to corruption that can not be repaired.

Chris_QPW

Nothing has changed from 2017 to 2020 (Subscription) in this area.

BTW I think there are some misconceptions on what causes the problems, and "when" you might encounter problems.

Let start with saying that only one machine is being used, what kind of problems will you encounter?

Quicken locks the data file when it is using it.  And both Dropbox and OneDrive respect that lock and will not do anything with it while it is locked.  So it would seem that there shouldn't be any problem using these in this situation, but there are times you will encounter problems.

When you do a copy, validate, backup, and various other operations, Quicken closes the existing data file at times, and expects to be able to open it right up when it wants to.  Well as soon as the lock is removed Dropbox/OneDrive jump in an lock it so that they can do the sync.  So when Quicken comes back to open the file and lock it, it can't.  So the operation fails.  This doesn't corrupt the data file, but does prevent that operation from working.

Now bring a second machine into the picture.  Here is where it may or may not corrupt your data file depending on the "cloud service".   If two people change the data file at the same time (or even leave Quicken open on both machines) the "cloud service" might try to merge the two files, which is impossible.  If it does it corrupt the data file.  If it doesn't merge the data file for sure one person's changes are going to be missing at the end of this.

Bob_L

I am not aware of anything that would make me feel safe running directly from a cloud service; I just backup to them.

Sherlock

Quicken for Windows is implemented on a single user proprietary database.  Data sharing utilities like Dropbox and OneDrive interfere with Quicken's assumptions regarding the database and may lead to corruption that can not be repaired.

NotACPA

Q lacks the "Lock", "Commit" and "Rollback" commands which would be necessary to operate safely in networked environments such as DropBox and OneDrive.

Also, don't let DropBox, etc backup your Q data file directly.  They interfere with Q's ability to do the backup.  Instead, have them backup the backup file created by Q.

Chris_QPW

Nothing has changed from 2017 to 2020 (Subscription) in this area.

BTW I think there are some misconceptions on what causes the problems, and "when" you might encounter problems.

Let start with saying that only one machine is being used, what kind of problems will you encounter?

Quicken locks the data file when it is using it.  And both Dropbox and OneDrive respect that lock and will not do anything with it while it is locked.  So it would seem that there shouldn't be any problem using these in this situation, but there are times you will encounter problems.

When you do a copy, validate, backup, and various other operations, Quicken closes the existing data file at times, and expects to be able to open it right up when it wants to.  Well as soon as the lock is removed Dropbox/OneDrive jump in an lock it so that they can do the sync.  So when Quicken comes back to open the file and lock it, it can't.  So the operation fails.  This doesn't corrupt the data file, but does prevent that operation from working.

Now bring a second machine into the picture.  Here is where it may or may not corrupt your data file depending on the "cloud service".   If two people change the data file at the same time (or even leave Quicken open on both machines) the "cloud service" might try to merge the two files, which is impossible.  If it does it corrupt the data file.  If it doesn't merge the data file for sure one person's changes are going to be missing at the end of this.

Chris_QPW

I thought I would add something else since I notice that @NotACPA mentioned Quicken not having locks.

In general there are three main locks

The one @NotACPA is talking about is a database record lock.  And given that most likely the Quicken database is a designed for single user use, I think it is correct to assume it doesn't have this kind of lock.  This would be needed to work in a multiple user environment, where it could lock a record one user is updating, and still allow another user to update another record.

Another kind of lock is the file lock at the Windows file level.  And Quicken is definitely using this kind of lock, and I know that Dropbox and OneDrive are "respecting it".

The last type is basically the same as a file lock, but done over the network.  These can be reliable for some kind of network protocols, but the big unknown for a program like Quicken is what protocols are being used.  The "other side" could be a Windows share, a Mac share, an NFS, ...  And it can be over different kinds of hardware, like Ethernet or WiFi and such.  And there is no telling if the network was setup properly or not.  And as a result can be everything from very reliable to terrible.  That can affect the reliability of the lock, but even more important the reliability of the reads and writes.  Quicken isn't setup to tolerate read/write failures it expects a rock solid local disk.

Note that even though Dropbox and OneDrive are "cloud folders" the locks are on the local file system.  And also they do have checks on the transferring of the data to correct for errors due to the network during the sync.

NotACPA

The Lock, Commit and Rollback commands that I referenced are standard database commands for processing individual records.