"Unable to create this security" - while trying to create an option security

dave344

I received the above error while trying to create an option security in Quicken (Windows PC, latest version).

I am not given any information on the error, only told to contact technical support. (See attached screenshot).

Can anyone tell we what the issue is with this security?

NotACPA

I'd call Q Support, as instructed: https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support

bmciance

You may have hit the limit.  There is a 2000 security max in a Quicken file

dave344

Thank you.

UKR

Is it possible that a security entry with the same name or symbol already exists in your data file?

The image you provided shows a list of securities which is partially scrolled down, not showing a number of entries at the top of the list.

It would also help if you could show us an image snapshot of the File Information window.
Click Help,  CTRL+click About Quicken to display this window. It'll show us the number of securities entries on file.

dave344

Thank you very much UKR. I did not know such information was available.

Apparently the limit is 799 securities, not 2,000. After I read bmciance's post I went in and deleted any security that had not been used. But it looks like I only have 8 remaining.

Mine is a large file, going back to 1992. It is remarkable that the integrity of the data has been maintained for so long. Kudos to Quicken. But I am starting to experience anomalies even though supervalidate shows a clean database. I am in the process of trying to create a new file with a start date of 1/1/20 and I hope this will free up more securities for future use.

Thank you again for your help.
Dave

Jim_Harman

799 is the highest index value, not the limit. A number much higher that the number actually used (791) indicates a problem.

But it would be interesting to know if for some reason you start getting errors when you hit 800.

q_lurker

Securities/Max Ref has never been fully explained.  My understanding is that your file currently has 791 securities in it, but that at some point in time there might have been 799 (a maximum pointer, index, reference value).  Have you recently deleted 8 securities?  The "unused" ones.  Was that before that stats view was accessed?  For comparison, my line is 1464/1464.  

As part of the validate process, did you have Quicken copy the file first.  That eliminates the deleted records from the data base and sometimes cleans up problems.    

UKR

Please perform all the copy and validation steps in part (2) of this document in the order specified, even if you have done some of them before:

Troubleshooting 101 - Fixing Software Installation and Data File Problems

After that's done, using the copied and validated file try to add this option again.
If it works, keep using this file and abandon the old one.

dave344

Thank you everyone for your help.

I can confirm that I am able to create securities beyond the "Max/ref" value shown in the About Quicken screen (see attached images).

So I am unclear as to why I got the original :"Unable to create security" error.

But as I mentioned, Quicken has been behaving strangely, or at least I am getting unreliable results, particularly with reports. For example, the "Net Worth" shown under Accounts in the application appears to be correct and reflects the reconciled balances in the transaction registers. However, reports showing net worth are significantly different than the amount shown in the application.

When I generate a balance sheet and an income statement report covering all periods in Quicken, I get 30 periods (12/31/91 - 12/31/21). If I paste this data into Excel and look at the change in net worth between each date, it equals the net income for the period within a few cents - for each period except the last two. It is taking a while for me to analyze the data but it appears if there is data corruption, it has occurred in the past 2 years.

I will run run the troubleshooting steps suggested by UKR and see if I can resolve the problem.

Thank you again for your help.