Noticed error Planning Tab - Annual View Budget Categories

Snowman

I can't be completely sure when this happened but it was within the last couple of Quicken updates.  Currently using R29.22, Build 27.1.29.22. and Windows 10 x64.

Before there were no categories listed as "..." .  But now in the column for some of the budget categories they are displayed only as ... not the category name.  In the attached screen shot the category should be Plumbing-Sprinklers.  Another is Water-Irrigation-Sewer.

The workaround seems to be to change Plumbing-Sprinklers to Plumbing - Sprinklers and Water-Irrigation-Sewer to Water - Irrigation - Sewer.

Strange new behavior, it seems that for some arbitrary reason a string (word) now has a limit of how many characters it can have.  Where Plumbing-Sprinklers is 19 characters Plumbing - Sprinklers is 8 the 1 and then 10.

Quicken Anja

Hello @Snowman,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and telling us about your issue, though I apologize that you are experiencing this.

If you don't mind, I'd like to start off by having you create a new (test) file to see if you experience the same issue in a new file as well. In doing so, we will be able to determine if this is caused by an issue within your data file or a potential bug within the Quicken program.

Follow the steps below to create a test file:

1. Choose File menu > New Quicken File.
2. Select New Quicken File.
3. Click OK.
4. In the File name field, enter the name of the new file, then click Save. Use a name like "Test File" to easily be able to tell it apart from your main file. Don't use any of these characters: * ? < > | " : \ / (asterisk, question mark, left and right-angle bracket, pipe, straight quotation marks, colon, BACKSLASH, FORWARD SLASH). Also, don't add the .qdf extension; Quicken does that for you.
5. Sign in with your Quicken ID (if prompted). If you are prompted to create a Quicken ID, click Sign In under the Create Account prompt. 
6. Select to not use Mobile (if prompted).
7. Click Add Account to add an account and create a category.
8. Create a budget and see if you are experiencing the same problem in this test file. 

From there, you can then switch back to your original file and delete this test file. 

Follow the steps below to switch files:

1. Click the File menu.
2. Look near the bottom of the options list.
3. Select the data file you want to open. 

Quicken will list the most recently opened data files, with a checkmark next to the file you are currently viewing.

Let us know how it goes!

[edited to correct steps instructions]

Snowman

@Quicken Anja

I created a test file and the results are very confusing  I have attached screen shots of the following.  First the TestFileBudgetCategories.jpg which shows which categories are selected to budget.  The second 2020BudgetCategores.jpg which shows my working file categories to budget.  I did not create ALL of the categories but enough to show the structure that I use.  The next two screen shots show the results of these settings.  First 2020AnnualBudget.jpg show the categories that are displayed in the Annual Budget View - Details.  Note that the "Everything Else" category is not displayed which is what I want.  The second TestAnnualBudget.jpg. with the SAME settings as my 2020 file shows the Everything Else category (which I do not want displayed) and the categories are not displayed in a manner that is easy to follow.

Notice that Plumbing-Sprinklers works in the test file when it did not in the 2020 file BUT Plumbing - Sprinklers did.  These completely different results were with the same settings.  I have also attached a pdf file of my Expense Categories.

In closing the budget in my 2020 works fine except for the instance I mentioned in my original post.  The test file does not seem to operate in any way shape or form to my file.  I suppose I could put together a complete category list in the test file but that will be very time consuming to do as my current category list is the culmination of 25 years.

Quicken Anja

Thank you for the update and for sharing the results and screenshot!

Then next, if you haven't already, I suggest you try to validate your data file by following the steps below--

1. First Save a backup of your data file (just in case) 
2. Go to File
3. File Operations
4. Validate and Repair
5. Validate File
6. Ok
7. Close the data log that will pop-up after the validation has completed
8. Close Quicken
9. Wait at least 5 seconds
10. Reopen Quicken
11. Try again to see if the issue reoccurs/remains the same or gets corrected

You can also try super validating which are the same steps as above except that you will hold Ctrl and Shift on your keyboard while clicking on Validate and Repair in order to get the option for Super Validate.

Snowman

@Quicken Anja

I already had ran a validate and super validate with no issues.  Yesterday when I opened my file One Step Update reported an error on my 3 American Express accounts (OL-294-A).  Later in the day it had not resolved itself so I turned off online services to these accounts, closed Quicken, restarted Quicken and successfully restored the online connection to all 3 accounts.  I then did a validate to make sure that all was well only this time is reported there were 977 transactions with "Unspecified Accounts".  The transactions were between 2009 and 2018 and were over multiple accounts.

I then started to restore backup files to new files from 9/1/2020, 8/1/2020, 7/1/2020, 6/1/2020, 5/1/2020, 4/1/2020, 3/2/2020, 2/2/2020.  In each case I opened the restored file and searched for "unspecified accounts" and in each case the same 977 transactions were reported.  I then restored the 1/1/2020 backup and that file had no transactions containing unspecified accounts.

I checked the planning tab in the 01/01/2020 file and my original issue was still there Plumbing-Sprinklers was shown as "..."

Now how do I move all of my transactions from the corrupted file to the new file.  Will this process correctly maintain transfers between accounts (credit card payments, savings to checking etc).

In the current file it is interesting to note that after the validate that reported the 977 transactions with unspecified accounts and was "repaired"  but this is not accurate, it just no longer reports them as being there when they still are there.

I tried to export the current file to a QXF file but first is problem is that it says I have one of more accounts enabled in Quicken Bill Pay (I never used this), if I click YES to "Continue Anyway" I get a Bugsplat error (see screenshot).

Chris_QPW

I'm not sure if I would call this a bug, or just a design flaw.

The user has no control over the sizing of the columns in this view.
So even though there might be tons or space Quicken isn't using it like this:


Now couple this with the fact that there are clearly restricting the number of characters wide for each "indent/sub category" and the result is that it is deciding that the text doesn't fit and as such changes it to ...  Changing text to ... that doesn't fix is pretty standard even though what would be much better is to display what they can and end it with ...  Of course even better than that would be not only do that, but also allow the user to resized the columns.

Here is my simple test.
Here is what I normally have for my home owner's association fees.


What you should notice is that it it separated and put on the next line at the word separation.

Now here I took out the white space in that category by changing them to -, which means I have one long "word".

Snowman

I agree I wouldn't call it a bug just a design flaw as well.  Changing Plumbing-Sprinklers to Plumbing - Sprinklers works just fine.  Having worked with computers for over 45 years it seems logical to try.

Fortunately that issue it put me onto a larger issue I have with the file and that is the 977 transactions that had the category changed to "unspecified accounts".  I had to go all the way back to my 01/01/2020 backup to find a file that does not contain the "unspecified accounts" and the category for each transaction is as it should be.

The only way I have seen this before is if one deletes an account that had transfers to other existing accounts.  It is for this reason that I do not delete old accounts I hide them instead.  Why this happened who can say. I will just have to print the registers from the bad file and re-enter them in the new file.

I could try to export them to a QXF file but when I try I get a Bug splat error,  Also I am afraid that I would be importing into my new file the transaction(s) that caused the error in the first place.

Snowman

I have reconstructed my data file from 1/1/2020 by restoring the 1/1/2020 backup and reentering the information from there.  I am about 80% done.  I decided against importing from the old file since I do not know what caused the issue in the first place and it seems no one else does either.

This is another example of the "validate" and "super validate" not working as it missed the issue for almost 11 months.  This happened to me once before 5 years ago.

So I guess the question is when will there be a REAL validate data file put together so that this does not happen.  If I had not had over a years worth of backup files I would have been toast.  I guess the recommendation at this point is do not delete ANY Quicken backup files because the validate data file is pretty much useless it seems.

Snowman

I have finally reentered all the transactions from 12/1/2019 and it was a BIG WASTE OF TIME!  The new file has many of the same errors that that the old one did. 

I had a trust account that ceased to exist in 2019 so at the beginning of the year 1/2/2020 I hid the trust investment account and the linked cash account.  For the display options I selected  "Hide in transaction entry lists" and "Hide account in account bar and account list option"  A some point Quicken randomly deleted transactions in the investment account but left the corresponding transaction in the cash account intact.  That in turn leads to the "unspecified accounts" issue.

It seems in many cases the transaction had been removed from the investment account so it is "no longer there" and that is why the link has broken.

So how do I fix this?

Snowman

@Quicken Anja

I have finally reentered all the transactions from 12/1/2019 and it was a BIG WASTE OF TIME!  The new file has many of the same errors that that the old one did. 

I had a trust account that ceased to exist in 2019 so at the beginning of the year 1/2/2020 I hid the trust investment account and the linked cash account.  For the display options I selected  "Hide in transaction entry lists" and "Hide account in account bar and account list option"  A some point Quicken randomly deleted transactions in the investment account but left the corresponding transaction in the cash account intact.  That in turn leads to the "unspecified accounts" issue.

It seems in many cases the transaction had been removed from the investment account so it is "no longer there" and that is why the link has broken.

So how do I fix this?

Snowman

No ideas on how to fix this?   Why did it happen in the first place and why didn't Validate File pickup on this until 3 years after the fact????  I am disappointed in the lack of response.

Snowman

Quicken file crashed again.  I went back to 12/1/2019 and reentered the information again.  This time I was able to use a QIF export and import to get the job done in 8 hours instead of 6 weeks.

Why was it not suggested that using QIF files might work to speed up the restoration process???

"No ideas on how to fix this?   Why did it happen in the first place and why didn't Validate File pickup on this until 3 years after the fact????  I am disappointed in the lack of response."

Still no response or suggestions and it has been two months since the original post.