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Vanguard Employer Sponsored 401k Account Not Updating via Direct Connect

dnfinance

The Quicken One Step Update does not return transactions and does not report an error code when updating my employer sponsored 401k account.

Background: Early last year (2020) my employer sponsored 401k account at Vanguard stopped updating via Direct Connect despite two other Vanguard retail accounts (a brokerage and an IRA) continuing to update using Direct Connect. I point out the use of both employer sponsored and retail accounts because that may be the root of the account updating problem.

Are other Quicken users, who have employer sponsored 401k accounts, experiencing problems using Direct Connect to update their accounts?

I have searched for a solution, spoke with Vanguard and worked with Quicken staff, but have not been able to fix the Direct Connect problem with my 401k account. One of my conversations with Quicken included a suggestion that I use Web Connect.

Does Quicken allow Web Connect for one account and Direct Connect for a different account both of which are at one financial institution?

Revert to Using Web Connect Updates: I am attempting to use Web Connect to download the 401k account transactions and want to continue using Direct Connect for the retail account transaction downloads, which have been updating using Direct Connect. Using Web Connect for the 401k account requires that the Direct Connect communications be disabled for that account.

Disabling Direct Connect for One Account Breaks Direct Connect for All Accounts at the Same Financial Institution: After disabling the Direct Connect for the 401k account I noticed the password vault no longer contained the passwords necessary to us Direct Connect with the two retail accounts. Evidently the passwords for all of the accounts were deleted when I disabled the 401k account’s Direct Connect feature.

Executing One Step Update revealed that the two Vanguard accounts were no longer included in the accounts that would be updated. Checking the account details indicated that the Direct Connect process remained enabled. Next, I Reset the Online Services for the two retail accounts after which I observed that those accounts were still not included in One Step Update tool.

Attempts to Rebuild Direct Connect Communications for the Two Retail Accounts: I Deactivated the Online Services for the two retail accounts and re-initiated the Direct Connect setup for those two accounts. I successfully linked the two retail files that were downloaded from Vanguard to the two accounts in Quicken and instructed Quicken to not link or create the 401k account. The process did not add the passwords to the Password Vault that are required to support the One Step Update / Direct Connect process.

Re-enabling Direct Connect for the 401k account cause the password for all three Vanguard accounts to be displayed in the Password Vault and enables the One Step Update process for all three accounts.

If Quicken doesn’t allow the use of both Web Connect for one account and Direct Connect for a different account at the same financial institution, am I left with using Web Connect to update all three of my Vanguard accounts?

Have other Quicken users observed the same problem using Direct Connect with a Vanguard employer sponsored 401k account?

Which Quicken log would contain information that might explain why my 401k account is not updating?

Can anyone suggest other work arounds to address my situation?

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Quicken Francisco

Hello @dnfinance

Thank you for reaching out to the Community regarding your issue, though I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing issues with your accounts. I'm wondering here what might exactly be causing the issue. By chance have you submitted any logs files just yet by reporting a problem? If not I would recommend doing so so we're able to take a look at what exactly could be happening in the log files.(please include all log files). Also are there any specific transactions that are missing or is it a certain time frame?

Once you get the chance let us know when you're able to submit logs and we'll take a look at what we can do.

Thanks,
Quicken Francisco

dnfinance

@Quicken Francisco

Thank you very much for responding to my post and offering to help resolve this issue.

I submitted logs via Quicken's "Help-Report a Problem" the same day I posted to the Community Board (June 21). I have uploaded logs for this problem once or twice in the past, which may provide additional data, if you have access to historical "Report a Problem" uploads. A Quicken call center representative also worked with me recently (ticket# 8628346) but was unable resolve the issue.

Question: Do the logs contain activity for all my Quicken files, including my “working files” and the files I have created for testing and for creating a work around for this problem? I am using the term “working files” to refer to Quicken files that use to track checking accounts and credit cards and separate file that tracks investments. If so, then the commingled log data may confuse an expert’s attempt to analyze the logs. If necessary, I would be happy to clean the logs before attempting a transaction download with the working file that contains the problem Vanguard 401k account..

Since the spring of 2020 none of the Vanguard 401k transactions download to my “working” Quicken file (via Direct Connect), unless I perform a work around. One workaround that will download the transactions once, is to deactivate and reactivate “Online Services” for my Vanguard 401k account. Doing so causes the transactions to download when Online Services are reactivated, but not the next time I initiate a download.

Thank you again for working with me.

Quicken Francisco

@dnfinance

Thanks for the update and also submitting your logs. reporting a problem submits the logs to the file you're currently in so I believe it was for your working files in this case. If you'd like to submit your test file as well you'll want to do the same in that file as well. You've had this issue for quite a while so we'll see what we're able to attempt to find in the logs and also take a look at your previous ticket as well.

Thanks,
Quicken Francisco

dnfinance

@Quicken Francisco

I created a new test file and added the Vanguard accounts to the file. The logs included entries that were dated prior to today, which led me to believe those entries were unrelated to the new Quicken test file. I deleted the entries that were dated prior to today and uploaded the logs via the "Report a Problem" tool.

Observations: 1) As in the past, transactions for the newly created Vanguard accounts were downloaded to the Quicken file. 2) One of the logs included errors that may provide a clue to the Direct Connect download problem I am experiencing.

For my next step, I plan to open my working file and initiated the One Step Update before uploading the logs again.

Quicken Francisco

@dnfinance

Thanks for the update and the additional information. I'm currently taking a look over the logs now and checking to see if there's any consistencies each time. Currently I don't have all my tools available to check what could exactly be happening but In the next day or two I should hopefully have a bit more information for you. If you have any questions please let us know.

Thanks,
Quicken Francisco

dnfinance

@Quicken Francisco

This morning I uploaded two sets of logs via the Quicken program's Report a Problem tool.

The first submittal contained the logs from my "working" (production file) file that does not download transactions for my Vanguard 401k account. I uploaded the logs shortly after the One Step Update failed to download the Vanguard 401k transactions. Keep in mind that, while the transaction download process consistently fails to update the 401K account, it successfully consistently downloads the transactions for a Vanguard brokerage account and an IRA account.

The second set of logs were from a test file that successfully downloaded the Vanguard 401k transactions this morning.

Quicken Francisco

@dnfinance

Thanks for the update and the additional logs. I apologize for not having a response for you sooner. I was taking a look at the logs and each of the logs so far seem to be very similar to the ones that are also downloading properly so I'll be asking another pair of eyes to also look and see if there's anything I may have missed. Once I'm able to get more information I'll let you know about what could be causing the issue.

Thanks,
Quicken Francisco

Quicken Francisco

@dnfinance

Thank you for your patience. After looking deeper at the logs it looks like things are working properly in the logs so I have quite a few questions that should hopefully help us narrow down the issue. Are you running Quicken through A VPN? Do you ever get an error message? Have you tried updating the account by using the update now button? If not I would recommend trying by going to the accounts register then selecting the gear in the top right. From there you should see the update now option.

With your daily routine to update vanguard do you perform a normal OSU then deactivate reactivate the account as well? This could vary as well so let us know if you do have any differences.

Once you get the chance let us know more and we'll see what our next step is.

Thanks,
Quicken Francisco

dnfinance

@Quicken Francisco

Francisco,

Thank you for continuing to work with me on this problem. I overlooked your recent post until today.

The following are my answers to your questions:

1) I am not running Quicken through a VPN.

2) I do not receive error messages.

3) I don't see an "Update Now" button in the list of items accessed by opening the account and clicking on the gearbox. I have tried updating the account by using the "Update Transactions" button that is accessed by the gear icon and it fails to download the transactions.

4) My daily routine is to update Vanguard via the normal OSU without deactivating and reactivating the "Online Services" for the account. For testing purposes, I have deactivated and reactivated the account's “Online Services”. Doing so causes the transactions to download once when Online Services are reactivated. Subsequent OSU's do not download the transactions.

Thank you again for your help.

volvogirl

Today July 22 there is/was a big internet outage and several big companies including Vanguard were down.

dnfinance

@volvogirl

You don't know how much i wished my problem was related to today's internet glitches. I have not been able to download my Vanguard 401k transactions for over a year without one off workarounds. I have hope that Francisco will help me resolve the issue.

Chris_QPW

One thing I don't see suggested/tried is to create a new data file and see if that works.
Given that @Quicken Francisco said your log files look correct it seems to me the failure isn't in the download, it is instead in the process of getting that data into your register.

There are various troubleshooting steps for transactions that get "stuck" and that might be what is needed. Testing in another data file might give some more clues.

dnfinance

@Chris_QPW

You are on target. I set up a new Quicken file a while ago and have been using it to download the transactions. I export the new transactions to a QIF file and then import them to my "working" file (production file).

Can you provide the "various trouble shooting steps" that might determine if the transactions are getting "stuck". I would be comfortable editing a copies of the my Quicken data files (the broken file and the working test file) to look for the differences between the broken file and the file that downloads the data.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated immensely.

Chris_QPW

Try this:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7895481/transactions-in-online-center-not-showing-in-downloaded-transactions-in-the-register?_ics=1627239393274&irclickid=~5-gc802RIypjkahlopszpghd94YZWULEINHMNDEyvmfe981SPHDu

This might also apply:
Quicken Says There Are Transactions to Accept But I Do Not See Any | Quicken

dnfinance

An update will be delayed until a new transaction is posted to my 401k.

Ps56k2

Just curious … as related to another topic with a Vanguard 403b -
did you have any problems setting up your Quicken account with the Add Account for your Vanguard 401k

dnfinance

I have created several Quicken test files while trying to solve my download problem and have not experienced any difficulties setting up my Vanguard 401k account in those test files.

dnfinance

@Quicken Francisco @Chris_QPW

Update on testing to identify the cause of the Quicken download problem. I performed the tests that Chris suggested. Please refer to the attached PDF document that illustrates the test results. We can rule out the idea that the transactions are downloading and hanging up in Quicken.

NEW INFO: I discovered that the OSU process is correctly downloading the Vanguard account share "Holdings information" (refer to OSU screen captures in the attached PDF doc). By “Reconciling Shares” I see that Vanguard is reporting the correct share holdings to Quicken, but Quicken's Vanguard account shows fewer holdings. The share count differences between the "Holdings information" and the account register transactions are reconciled after the missing transactions are entered in the Quicken Vanguard account register.

Does this indicate that Quicken is making a "Direct Connection" to Vanguard even though it is not downloading the transactions? Keep in mind that when the account's "Direct Connect" is deactivated and then reactivated in Quicken, the missing transactions download properly during the reactivation process. But, subsequent OSU operations fail to download any new transactions.

What could cause the OSU update process to download the share count holdings but not the transactions?

What could cause the OSU process to work once after deactivating/reactivating the Direct Connect feature but fail to successfully operate after that?

This issue started in early 2020 at the same time other Quicken users were receiving error notices when downloading from Vanguard. Could that (now resolved) OSU problem be related to my problem? Could my file have become corrupted while the OSU process was throwing errors for others?

Thanks again for your help with this.

Quicken - Vanguard Update Problem 8-5-21 submission.pdf

robertfellows109

My Vanguard 401K balance has also not been updating consistently. Looking at the log in Quicken I can see that I have had to manually add shares intermittently since at least 2017. They were only added automatically 5 times in 2021 and 20 times manually.

dnfinance

@robertfellows109 @Chris_QPW @Quicken Francisco

In early 2020, after Quicken made a change to the software, I started experiencing One Step Update problems with one of my Quicken data files that has three Vanguard accounts. By mid 2021, after extensive testing, I adopted a hypothesis that my data file was corrupted by the initial Quicken software change. By the time I figured it out, too much time (numerous) transactions had passed for me to practically use a 2020 backup copy.

My other data files that have single Vanguard accounts work well with Direct Connect.

I abandoned using OSU to download my three Vanguard accounts in the one file. I now use the Web Connect process for the file with three accounts and OSU for the data files that have only one Vanguard account each.

Now we are experiencing problems with Charles Schwab downloads, which I hope leads Quicken to develop a better testing protocol when implementing software updates.