Patch Cadence

jtemplin

The 4th (or 5th? I've lost count) patch has been published for August. I'm all for fixing bugs, but the old, salty software engineer in me is concerned that Quicken is pushing things out too quickly and is patching patches. I'm finding myself being extra cautious when applying mondo patches. Maybe things will settle down when the Bill Pay transition is over?

jrich75

Yes, I'm trying to stay at .18 which is working OK for me and included only 1 fix.  Here's the list of fixes for .23 which tried to auto update today.  I always worry about patches that try to incorporate a large number of fixes.

Quicken 2020 R28.23 Release NotesAug 2020

• Improvement: Removed or updated product and help references to Quicken Bill Pay.
• Improvement: Updated online text for Account list and Account details screens.
• Improvement: Updated bill payment quota text to reflect the day of the month that the quota renews. Also updated online help to reflect change.
• Fixed: Issue in which users who have cloud sync turned off were getting partial synchronization run during a scheduled update. This sometimes resulted in duplicate transactions.
• Fixed: Issue refreshing the authorization token. Additional issue switching the authorization token when user switches Quicken IDs.
• Fixed: Issue with crashes during sign in because a necessary file is in use by another process.
• Fixed: Crash related to editing tag names. Crash related to creating a new data file. Crash related to the Due Date view under the Bills & Income tab.
• Fixed: Issue in which the warning that Quicken Bill Pay is ending did not appear when expected.
• Fixed: Issue with One Step Update requesting passwords when user stores passwords for some but not all financial institutions.

Chris_QPW

jrich75 said:

 I always worry about patches that try to incorporate a large number of fixes.

Well that is one thing that I don't get about the philosophy postponing patches.
To me it seems that action results in you getting a larger amount all at once when you finally do accept a patch since they are accumulative.

As for installing Mondo patches, well Quicken Inc does have the policy of first sending out the automatic updates to a limited amount of people and then stop and wait to see if there is any problems (staged release).  So it seems to get their "its OK approval" you wouldn't install either the automatic or the manual patch until in "full release".  That alone would avoid several of the patches from what I have seen.

The big problem of course is that Quicken Inc gives no indication if the automatic patch you are getting is for a "staged release" or not.

jtemplin

Chris_QPW said:

Well that is one thing that I don't get about the philosophy postponing patches.

The big problem of course is that Quicken Inc gives no indication if the automatic patch you are getting is for a "staged release" or not.

I always wait for a patch to move to mondo patch status before I consider installing it.  But it's not clear what the criteria is for a "staged release" to move on to mondo patch availability. Quicken may be unlucky in some cases where the staged release users don't exercise latent bugs. I don't fault Quicken; in the trenches of software engineering, it happens.

I waited for 28.18 to become a mondo patch before I installed it, and immediately started seeing odd things (unusually long OSU, the automatic updater not terminating cleanly preventing the program from running). I immediately uninstalled, and "downgraded" back to 28.16 and those problems went away. I took the 28.23 mondo patch and all seems well.

Chris_QPW

Waiting for it to go to Mondo patch release isn't waiting for it to be out of staged release mode.

Long ago the policy was to not put up the Mondo patch until it was after the stage release mode, but that caused a problem.  There were patches that if installed on one machine, but not on another, and sharing the same data file, it might not work right.

So the policy was changed to put the Mondo patch release up on the web site shortly after it is released in staged release mode.

So it you install the Mondo patch as soon as it comes out, you are in fact participating in the "Stage release mode".

What people are suppose to do is wait for Quicken to suggest installing it, or use Help -> Check for Updates

The real problem here is that you can't tell when they have send this to you as part of the "staged release".  One thing you could do is when it is first offered, wait a day and check and see if it is still there for an automatic install.  By that time it should have gone out to the "limited users", and stopped.

jrich75

Chris_QPW said:

jrich75 said:

 I always worry about patches that try to incorporate a large number of fixes.

Well that is one thing that I don't get about the philosophy postponing patches. To me it seems that action results in you getting a larger amount all at once when you finally do accept a patch since they are accumulative.

My philosophy is that every fix has a potential to cause unanticipated consequences and possible bugs. The more fixes incorporated, the more potential for bugs.  If a new bug is significant, it will be identified and hopefully corrected before it affects a large number of users. (The primary benefit of a staged release).  So if I'm not currently having any of the issues identified by the update, I will wait a few days to see if a fix to the fix is forthcoming. 
This particular update attempted to self install during startup today (no OSU notice) so I decided to check out it's scope before authorizing the install. Since I'm not having problems with any of the identified issues, I can wait a while until the update is listed as the current version.  Just as you suggest. 

EDIT: Just verified that Quicken is still showing current version as R28.18 for me.  R28.23 is apparently in staged release.

jrich75

jrich75 said:

Just verified that Quicken is still showing current version as R28.18 for me.  R28.23 is apparently in staged release.

Well, I got offered R28.24 this morning with a OSU notice.  At least it didn't try to auto-install at startup.  

Quicken 2020 R28.24 Release NotesAug 2020

• Fixed: An issue in which users were asked to sign in every time they launched Quicken.
• Fixed: An issue in which the welcome screen displayed in the background for every launch of Quicken, despite the data file password being set.

Chris_QPW

I just got offered the update too during One Step Update, and I went ahead and installed it.

No surprises for me, but then again I wasn't having the problems that it is suppose to fix so I can't report on that.

Note the manual patch isn't up on the website yet.