Exceeding maximum number of datasets and client side error 404

BobN

I've been using quicken for 20 years. Now whenever I start quicken I get the "Exceeded the maximum number of datasets message." 5 times I have called Quicken Support. Everytime I call they reset something in my account and the problem goes away. The rep then tells me the problem is now fixed. The next time I open quicken the message is back. Plus I'm getting the "Quicken encountered a client side error while syncing your data HTTP 404" and cannot sync with my mobile devices. These two issues may be related.

I use the quicken subscription service, Year 2020, Version R30.14, Build 27.1.30.14. I see others have had the problem but it's not been resolved. The support representative has involve the tier 2 staff but they haven't been able to permanently fix it. I've followed all the steps, logout/login, uninstall/reinstall, create test file, etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If any of the moderators read this and can get me in touch with Quicken's best problem solvers, please do so.
Stay safe everyone.

BobN

I finally have it working. Over the past week I’ve been on the phone with quicken tech support for at least 10 hours. I’m retired so I had the time to spend. Actually even though getting it working took a long time, I was impressed by the persistence of the tech support staff. Unlike some other organizations that try and get you off the phone as quickly as possible, these folks stayed with it.

The breakthrough came when I received a call from a member of tier 2 tech support inquiring if my problem was resolved. When I told him it wasn’t, he spent an hour with me but without success. We set up a time for him to call me the next day which he did.

He was able to follow what was happening with my quicken account as I tried different things he suggested. Even though he had deleted my datasets I would still get the “exceeded” message. I don’t use mobile sync. He was able to determine my problem was connecting to the quicken server not with the quicken cloud. He had me create a new data file and download my financial accounts to that file. After that everything was working correctly.

His conclusion was that my old data file had damaged data and this was interfering with my access to quicken. The damaged data was confirmed by running validate. Super validate would not fix the problem with the old file. That file had 23 years worth of data. Previous backups of that file also would not work.

Bottom line is with the new file everything is working properly and has been for the last 4 days. Unfortunately my financial institutions will only download the last 90 days worth of transactions. My older data is on a corrupted file. Maybe some day I’ll try to repair it.

There are still some unanswered questions such as why the problem started now. I had been using quicken almost everyday for a long time. Also why backup files that we’re working when I backed them up would not work now

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to get the details back to those on the community that tried to help. Also I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Osscar from tier 2 tech support. He was courteous, professional and talented.

Thanks again everyone. I hope this helps someone else.

Quicken Hugh

Hello @BobN, 
Sorry to hear that you've encountered this "exceeding maximum number of datasets..." message.
The good news is that we should be able to help you resolve it, with a little bit of work on your part.
It sounds like you've got dozens of datasets, and even after the Quicken Support over-ride the maximum for you, you soon end up exceeding the maximum limit again (thereby inadvertently triggering the error message once more).

Do you need all of the datasets? (It is very uncommon that you would need dozens of datasets.)
It seems that with the Quicken Support help, you could delete a few dozen un-needed datasets and alleviate the problem. When you contact support, tell them which file dataset you do need (typically only your current, active, data file), and ask them to delete all of the others. Let us know how you turn out. On the other hand, there might possibly be something else going on. This thread has a lot of commentary on the subject. Support may have to look more deeply into this with you.

BobN

Quicken Hugh. Thank you for responding. To answer your question, No I don't need all those datasets. I have deleted all but the one I'm using on my computer but I cannot delete the ones on the Quicken Cloud. When I go to Edit / preferences / Quicken ID & cloud accounts, I get "We could not retrieve your Quicken profile information." When I try preferences / Mobile & Web, I get "We could not retrieve your cloud account information."

Because of this I can't delete any datasets on the cloud. It seems that my problem is that my quicken app cannot communicate with or won't sync with the Quicken cloud. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the app but it doesn't solve that problem. Also I tried all this on another computer and had the same problem. Any ideas on how to fix this issue?

Thanks again

Chris_QPW

Try running One Step Update.  That should recreate the data set for that data file and then you should see the profile.  If that doesn't do it see if you can log off and then back on with the same Quicken Id.

Every data file has to have a cloud account data set.  It stores information for various services.  To delete the data set for the data file you are in you have to first create another new data file and delete the other account's cloud account data set from there, and Cloud Sync has to be on in that data file.  And then if that is a data file you are going be using again you run One Setup Update to recreate the data set.

But I'm afraid that I disagree with @Quicken Hugh on that the user can always fix this problem. It depends on what has caused it. As is stated in that thread that he posted (Link).

Not only do you get a new data set for every data file you have, it seems that just doing a restore of your one data file will cause it to create a new data set.  These "duplicate" data sets aren't visible to the user and the user can't delete them (you will only see one cloud data set per data file in Quicken).  Quicken support is saying that there is some kind of security/audit reason that they can't be deleted.

The recommendation that @Quicken Sarah gave in that thread is basically to stop using Backup and Restore as a way to share a data file between machines.  Instead use "Save a Copy".  In other words limit the number of times you do Backup and Restore if at all possible.

BobN

Thanks Chris
Unfortunately whenever I try to run one step update I get an error message "An internal error occurred while initiating one step update. Please sign out and sign in again." Of course signing out and in doesn't work.

The funny thing is my quicken file will allow me to communicate with my financial institutions and download transactions. It will not communicate with the quicken cloud. Because I can't communicate with quicken cloud, I can't delete any datasets there.

Does reaching the dataset limit prevent me from accessing the quicken cloud?
Catch 22?

Chris_QPW

BobN said:

Does reaching the dataset limit prevent me from accessing the quicken cloud?
Catch 22?

Sorry I have no idea.

BobN

I finally have it working. Over the past week I’ve been on the phone with quicken tech support for at least 10 hours. I’m retired so I had the time to spend. Actually even though getting it working took a long time, I was impressed by the persistence of the tech support staff. Unlike some other organizations that try and get you off the phone as quickly as possible, these folks stayed with it.

The breakthrough came when I received a call from a member of tier 2 tech support inquiring if my problem was resolved. When I told him it wasn’t, he spent an hour with me but without success. We set up a time for him to call me the next day which he did.

He was able to follow what was happening with my quicken account as I tried different things he suggested. Even though he had deleted my datasets I would still get the “exceeded” message. I don’t use mobile sync. He was able to determine my problem was connecting to the quicken server not with the quicken cloud. He had me create a new data file and download my financial accounts to that file. After that everything was working correctly.

His conclusion was that my old data file had damaged data and this was interfering with my access to quicken. The damaged data was confirmed by running validate. Super validate would not fix the problem with the old file. That file had 23 years worth of data. Previous backups of that file also would not work.

Bottom line is with the new file everything is working properly and has been for the last 4 days. Unfortunately my financial institutions will only download the last 90 days worth of transactions. My older data is on a corrupted file. Maybe some day I’ll try to repair it.

There are still some unanswered questions such as why the problem started now. I had been using quicken almost everyday for a long time. Also why backup files that we’re working when I backed them up would not work now

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to get the details back to those on the community that tried to help. Also I would like to acknowledge the efforts of Osscar from tier 2 tech support. He was courteous, professional and talented.

Thanks again everyone. I hope this helps someone else.

Chris_QPW

I like long posts.      Especially if that have lots of good information in them like yours does.

On the subject of creating a new data file, you might want to consider this process:
http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/changetransfers.html

Its not perfect, but it beats having your data separated into multiple data files.  Even if you find a way to fix that data file in the future unless it is soon it won't matter much because your data will already be separated into two data file with it very hard to combine the two.

BobN

Thanks Chris. I’ll give it a try