Quicken Portfolios: Brokerage Account Portfolio will not refresh (Q Mac)

Scott Rose

So, Quicken Version 5.18.2 (macOS 10.15.7) is turning out to be a complete disaster.

[removed - inaccurate]

When we enter in new "buy" transactions for stocks that we have recently purchased, the portfolio screen WILL NOT REFLECT THE NEW BUY TRANSACTIONS!!

There seems to be absolutely no way to refresh the portfolio screen to reflect all of these new buy transactions that we have entered into the brokerage account register.

We've even tried quitting & relaunching Quicken, and the portfolio screen STILL WILL NOT UPDATE to reflect our new transactions that we entered!

In other words, the portfolio screen is STUCK IN TIME — at some unknown time that we have no idea when it is stuck in!

Can the Quicken Mac team please fix ASAP?

Scott Rose

There is a major bug with the Quicken Portfolio screen for a brokerage account. (Quicken Mac Version 5.18.2 (Build 518.35919.100), macOS 10.15.7).

When we enter in new "buy" transactions for stocks that we have recently purchased, the portfolio screen will not reflect the new buy transactions.

There seems to be absolutely no way to refresh the portfolio screen to reflect all of these new buy transactions that we have entered into the brokerage account register.

We've even tried quitting & relaunching Quicken, and the portfolio screen still will not update to reflect our new transactions that we entered.

In other words, the portfolio screen is stuck in time — at some unknown time that we have no idea when it is stuck in.

jacobs

@Scott Rose  I am unable to reproduce the problem you describe. Changing the 'As Of' date in the portfolio results in different values on different days, and adding a dummy Buy transaciton changes my portfolio value and numbe rof share -- all es expected.

What, exactly, is not updating for you? Security value? Number of shares? It sounds like you have a placeholder transaction in your account which is causing Quicken to effectively nullify your new entries. Have you tried a similar (test) transaction in a different account, or with a different security? 

Scott Rose

Thanks, @jacobs!  

Yes, I've already tried changing the dates to see if it makes a difference but it doesn't. I've tried changing transaction dates to earlier in the year, I've tried changing the "Price and holdings of" date on the portfolio screen itself, I've tried deleting transactions, I've tried adding transactions, I've tried changing to different securities, I've tried changing to different dates, importing transactions, manually creating transactions, etc.

I've tried troubleshooting this for 3 hours already. (I've been using Quicken to manage my investments for the last 30 years, so I am doing everything normally like I normally do — but nothing will update on the portfolio screen.)

The entire portfolio screen is frozen. Absolutely NOTHING changes on it. Not a single thing. Not the Shares, Not the Avg cost per share, not the cost basis, not the gain/loss, not the market value, nothing at all. The entire portfolio screen is completely & totally frozen.

And then, I just decided to create a transaction for a brand new fake security called "Test" with fake symbol "Test". 

Here's where things get really crazy:

This brand new fake "test" security actually shows up on the portfolio screen with the accurate numbers! And then, if I keep adding fake transactions for this new fake security called "test", its numbers keep refreshing just fine on the portfolio screen!!

So the portfolio screen is working just fine — for this one brand new fake security only!

But if I make a transaction for **ANY** existing security, none of their information updates on the portfolio screen. So all existing securities are currently broken.

Totally confused & frustrated, because I don't even know what my accurate holdings are anymore!

Scott Rose

Things have gotten even crazier with this bug:

I've tried changing the dates to see if it makes a difference but it doesn't. I've tried changing transaction dates to earlier in the year, I've tried changing the "Price and holdings of" date on the portfolio screen itself, I've tried deleting transactions, I've tried adding transactions, I've tried changing to different securities, I've tried changing to different dates, importing transactions, manually creating transactions, etc. 

I've tried troubleshooting this for 3 hours already. (I've been using Quicken to manage my investments for the last 30 years, so I am doing everything normally like I normally do — but nothing will update on the portfolio screen.)

The entire portfolio screen is frozen. Absolutely NOTHING changes on it. Not a single thing. Not the Shares, Not the Avg cost per share, not the cost basis, not the gain/loss, not the market value, nothing at all. The entire portfolio screen is completely & totally frozen.

And then, I just decided to create a transaction for a brand new fake security called "Test" with fake symbol "Test". 

Here's where things get really crazy:

This brand new fake "test" security actually shows up on the portfolio screen with the accurate numbers! And then, if I keep adding fake transactions for this new fake security called "test", its numbers keep refreshing just fine on the portfolio screen!!

So the portfolio screen is working just fine — for this one brand new fake security only!

But if I make a transaction for **ANY** existing security, none of their information updates on the portfolio screen. So all existing securities are currently broken.

Totally confused & frustrated, because I don't even know what my accurate holdings are anymore!

Scott Rose

@Jacobs

New information!

You nailed it when you said that there is a "placeholder transaction in your account which is causing Quicken to effectively nullify your new entries".

Here's what I just discovered:

Quicken has unbelievably added some CRAZY transactions to the very bottom of my register dated May 17, 1997, where it removed the shares from my account!!

Every single time I enter a new BUY transaction for a stock, Quicken is unbelievably adding a REMOVE TRANSACTION in 1997 for that same exact amount of stock!!

I have no idea what it is doing, or why ti is doing that!

It has a phantom mind all on its own! This is truly crazy. 

jacobs

I didn't suggest changing a transaction date; I suggested searching for what sounds like a placeholder transaction in your account where this is happening. I also suggested trying to (fake) buy one of your existing securities in a separate account (a rela account different than the one you're describing, or a new fake account just for testing).

Scott Rose

New information!

Here's what I just discovered:

Quicken has unbelievably added some CRAZY transactions to the very bottom of my register dated May 17, 1997, where it removed the shares from my account!! 

Every single time I enter a new BUY transaction for a stock, Quicken is unbelievably adding a REMOVE TRANSACTION in 1997 for that same exact amount of stock!! 

I have no idea what it is doing, or why ti is doing that! 

It has a phantom mind all on its own! This is truly crazy. 

jacobs

What you describe is consistent with what a placeholder transaction does. Often, removing the placeholder(s) and any other adjustment/bogus transactions will resolve the situation. Placeholders occur for valid reasons, such as a Buy transaction where Quicken doesn't have the cost/basis, or if Quicken has connected with your financial institution and knows your current shares and value (and this keeps making adjustments to keep your shares and value exactly the same).

Scott Rose

Thanks, @jacobs! You should be the CEO of Quicken! You know all of the answers, all of the time!!

I deleted the placeholder transactions and everything is fine again.

Here's the crazy thing — this all got started when Quicken downloaded these newest "buy transactions" from my financial institution. The cost basis is there, and my financial institution's website reflects the proper number of shares & proper cost basis. Everything on my financial institution's website is 100% perfect. And the transactions downloaded perfectly fine into Quicken.

But for some reason, Quicken started freaking out. For some reason, it must not have seen what my financial institution is accurately reporting as my current number of shares. My share balance & cost basis on the financial institution's website is totally fine. These are recent transactions that probably haven't fully "settled" yet, which is why it might be throwing Quicken off. But Quicken really shouldn't be thrown off by that, especially if all the balances & cost bases on the website are 100% perfect. I've done this exact same thing hundreds of times in the past, and it hasn't freaked out Quicken before.

I even tried "Updating All Online Accounts" (shift-command-U) multiple times, but it still didn't fix it. I had to delete those placeholder transactions — once you informed me that they were there. That's what fixed the issue.

But this is the exact same thing that I've done hundreds of times in the past — this account is automatically connected to my financial institution, so it always downloads transactions.

My financial institution is Fidelity Investments, so maybe it has a problem with that bank.

Very bizarre and frustrating, and it still seems like a bug to me — but THANK YOU, @jacobs, for figuring out this problem for me!! You are the best!!  

ronholl1

This just happened to me, I deleted the placeholder transaction and all is fine. They really need to fix this problem as it is disconcerting when it occurs. Running Quicken Mac 6.0.3 on a new Macbook Air M1.

jacobs

@ronholl1 For what it's worth, placeholder transactions don't magically appear as if it's a bug in Quicken Mac. They typically appear when first setting up accounts, if things don't add up, and later, if your financial institution transmits a balance that doesn't match the transactions it's downloaded. Every financial institution does things a little differently. If they provide Quicken with your live balance which may include transactions that are pending, Quicken has to create a placeholder to account for the not-yet-downloaded transactions. In many cases, waiting for one or two business days will cause the balance and transactions to get back together, and the placeholder will disappear on its own.