Suddenly, the market value of a bond fund went blank and won't allow manual entry of value.

QKAnnJ

I don't download market values, but enter them manually. Suddenly, the market value for one bond fund went blank, the "last update" says "never" and when I try to manually re-enter it, it simply reverts to blank. All the transactions for that fund (purchases, dividends, dividend reinvestments) are still there, cost basis is there, I can manually enter market values on all my other investments, but this one simply shows as a total loss and won't save a manual entry of market value. I'm using Quicken 2014.

q_lurker

QKAnnJ said:

That's what's strange. There WAS no old price information for the old ticker. Not in the Edit Price History window and not in the Security Detail View window or its price history chart. Just all vanished.
But I could try what you suggest, go back to the real ticker, leave it again for the new fake one and choose to delete the real ticker's price history and then come back again and see if it will accept new price info at that point. Gotta go deal with a plumber right now, but I'll give that a try later. Thanks for the suggestion.

Quicken maintains the price history information using tickers when possible.  Even when you delete a security, the price history remains in the file.  If that set of records is damaged, they remain in the file damaged. 

When you reset away from that original ticker, there is a good chance only good data gets transferred to the new ticker.  That is why your first step worked and you could enter new data.  .     

But when you switched back to the original, I suspect it got merged back in with the damaged data.  If you select to have the old data deleted during your step, then there is no merging in the reverse step. 

At least, that is the way I have seen things work in some cases.   

NotACPA

What fund (what's it's ticker symbol)?

Why are you not able to manually input a current price by doing

• Tools
• Security List
• clicking on the fund name
• clicking Update, then Edit Price History and  inputting a current unit value?

QKAnnJ

Thank you. I tried that. When the Edit Price History window opens, it is blank of any price history (although I've owned the mutual fund for over four years and at a minimum it should have one price history per month when I post the reinvested dividends).
When I click New and enter today's market value and then OK, the window remains blank. It simply does not accept a new price.

NotACPA

What  fund?

And when you do TOOLS, Security List ... click "Show Hidden Securities" at the bottom of the dialog and see if, perhaps, you've got this fund recorded twice ... with slightly different names.

QKAnnJ

No, not recorded twice, no other fund with a similar name.
But your questions made me try an experiment. I changed the symbol for the fund by one letter and when I was asked what to do with the price history I told it to copy from the old to the new symbol. The market value suddenly appeared. I changed the symbol back, gave the same instruction, and the market value disappeared again.
As a work-around, since I don't download but manually enter all prices, this works for me for the time being, although it's wiped out all past price history.
But it's very mysterious.

QKAnnJ

I should clarify, after I changed the symbol name the first time, I entered a new market value in the Edit Price History window, which it accepted. That price disappeared when I changed the symbol back to its original one, and reappeared when I changed it back to the new one.

NotACPA

Since you've repeatedly refused to provide the fund name and ticker ... I'm done here!

q_lurker

When you changed the ticker by one character, did you opt to delete the old price information (for the old ticker).  I think taking that option will clear up your situation to where you can then change the ticker back to the correct symbol.  

QKAnnJ

That's what's strange. There WAS no old price information for the old ticker. Not in the Edit Price History window and not in the Security Detail View window or its price history chart. Just all vanished.
But I could try what you suggest, go back to the real ticker, leave it again for the new fake one and choose to delete the real ticker's price history and then come back again and see if it will accept new price info at that point. Gotta go deal with a plumber right now, but I'll give that a try later. Thanks for the suggestion.

QKAnnJ

May I ask what difference that would make? I do have some privacy concerns about disclosing what particular funds I invest in, since my Quicken is not even set up to access my accounts online or update any info online.
No offense intended, and thanks for the information you provided.

NotACPA

So that we can research whether any changes to the fund itself can be causing this.

AND, unless you're the ONLY investor in this fund ... how can this possibly be a privacy issue???

QKAnnJ

It is frankly easier to function under a general principle of non-disclosure of any financial information than study the possible mechanisms in each case by which someone might misuse it. Having just spent three hours this last week on the phone with the fraud departments of various financial institutions, and being actually on hold with one while I was answering your messages, I'm probably hypersensitive to the realistic risk right now. :neutral:

Your reason for needing it certainly is valid in a case where my Quicken account accesses price information online; I can see that a name change, for example, could cause a problem. However, mine does not and has never even been set up for online access so the possibility doesn't arise.

Jim_Harman

You say your account has not been set up for online access. Do you ever do a one-step update or download quotes? If so, if you view the security in question in Quicken's Security list, is the Download Quotes box checked?

Your description of things changing when you change a ticker symbol indicates that Quicken may be attempting to download quotes for this security.

Also if you have not already, you may want to back up your data file and then try File > File Operations > Validate and Repair to see if data corruption is contributing to the problem you are seeing.

QKAnnJ

No. I never do one-step update or download quotes. I have never even entered my Intuit ID in my Quicken 2014 program to allow such access and get an error message to that effect if I try to do an update or download quotes.

I will do as you suggest re validating/repairing. The fact that changing the ticker symbol solves the problem suggested to me a data corruption problem as well, but it had been so long since I'd done that operation I'd forgotten all about it. Thanks!

q_lurker

QKAnnJ said:

That's what's strange. There WAS no old price information for the old ticker. Not in the Edit Price History window and not in the Security Detail View window or its price history chart. Just all vanished.
But I could try what you suggest, go back to the real ticker, leave it again for the new fake one and choose to delete the real ticker's price history and then come back again and see if it will accept new price info at that point. Gotta go deal with a plumber right now, but I'll give that a try later. Thanks for the suggestion.

Quicken maintains the price history information using tickers when possible.  Even when you delete a security, the price history remains in the file.  If that set of records is damaged, they remain in the file damaged. 

When you reset away from that original ticker, there is a good chance only good data gets transferred to the new ticker.  That is why your first step worked and you could enter new data.  .     

But when you switched back to the original, I suspect it got merged back in with the damaged data.  If you select to have the old data deleted during your step, then there is no merging in the reverse step. 

At least, that is the way I have seen things work in some cases.