Allow disabling of reminders when restoring a backup

Rocket J Squirrel

Today I restored a month-old backup file. I ended up with about a dozen reminders (scheduled transactions) which had passed their due dates and Quicken wanted to execute them.

It is very difficult to work with multiple reminders; they must be deleted or ignored one at a time. Multiple selection is not allowed in the Bill and Income Reminders window.

My suggestion is this:

When restoring a backup file which has overdue reminders, prompt the user what to do about active reminders. I can think of several useful options

• "ignore [skip] all"
• "delete all"
• "do nothing" which would amount to leaving the overdue reminders as they are

Rocket J Squirrel

Bumpty bumpty bump.

Rocket J Squirrel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haAduyUNQN0

splasher

Bumpity

DoctorBrown

I would like to raise this as a code RED as far as backups are concerned. I restored a backup that was 2 months old and the 'auto enter' and overdue reminders made the file unusable for my needs. Any earlier and the backup is essentially useless. If you are restoring a backup, you should be able to see the file as it was on the date the backup was made. Because typically you are trying to redo or undo something that has gone wrong, and these reminders make determining what went wrong almost impossible.

Rocket J Squirrel

With all the problems Quicken has, restoring a backup is recommended more often than ever. Reminders that want to execute upon restore continue to be a problem. So, in other words, "bump."

Sherlock

If you would like to prevent auto entry of reminders when you restore a backup of Quicken file, I suggest temporarily resetting the system date and time to the date and time of the backup Quicken file.  You may then manage the reminders as you see fit before correcting the system date and time.

DoctorBrown

Setting date/time of the computer in order to block Auto Entry reminders from executing is, at best, a clumsy workaround, at worst, it can cause unexpected PC behavior. On today's computer, there are may functions that depend on the date/time to be set to the correct time.
1. The user must disable the setting: Set time Automatically. If not, the system will update and set the clock to the current time after a few seconds.
2. If the clock is set to a prior time communication to other computers on the internet could be affected because digital certificates used for secure communication may become invalid.
3. There are may scheduled tasks that are configured that a user may have no knowledge. They could be triggered to run and cause unexpected behavior.
4. If you have any cloud storage syncing enable, I have no idea how that could mess up your files.

So although you may succeed when you reset the system time, you are taking a calculated risk. This is something a user should not have to do.

splasher

So, are you suggesting in a round about way that the user disable their internet connection prior to setting the date back to avoid all of the issues you listed?

DoctorBrown

I don't have a comprehensive list of all the system functions that may be affected. I don't know if disabling the internet connection is sufficient. I'm saying there is a risk in resetting the system clock that the user should not have to take. I am pointing out to Quicken that there is a problem with the recovery from a backup that MUST be addressed. Otherwise a backup is almost useless unless the backup is very recent (a day, a week, a month, I don't know). if you need to look at a file from a year ago, then I hope you have good luck.

Rocket J Squirrel

Oh, I get it now. Unplug the laptop and take it across the International Date Line (backwards, not forwards) enough times that you reach the date of the backup file. If the seasons don't match, cross the horizon also. Then restore the backup.

Some of the suggestions for "workarounds" on this forum are simply unhelpful.

Rocket J Squirrel

I'm gonna have to bump this one again.

I back up Quicken after every session, and only rarely need to resort to using a backup file. But when I do, what a mess with reminders!

When creating a backup, the user probably doesn't know whether he'll ever need it. Will it be restored tomorrow because of a problem? Or will it sit for years until the user needs some info not found in the current file? These two cases probably call for different reminder handling and is why a restore-time option to deal with reminders is badly needed.