Drop down menus in Payees and Categories no longer work (Q Mac)

Steve Schifrin

Quicken for Mac Premier (2017 iMac, Mojave), drop down menus in Payees and Categories displays a bank window. Hovering over the window will reveal the menu items one-by-one, but this is incredibly tedious. Is anyone else experiencing this, and is there a solution. Thank you for any help. -SS-

Steve Schifrin

Thanks, RickO. The problem has been going on long enough, now, that it's spanned a couple of software updates and weekly restarts, but I haven't tried downloading a completely fresh version of the application, and wouldn't have thought of it. 🤦‍♂️ Heading there now. Again, thanks.

jacobs

@Steve Schifrin If you have installed updates, then you have reinstalled the software, as each update is a complete new application. So that's not likely to solve your problem.

I'm wondering about the location of your data file. Is it on your local hard drive or do you have it on a cloud storage service like Dropbox or iCloud? If it's on your hard drive, is it in your Documents folder or a folder on your Desktop -- and if so, do you have your macOS preferences set to store those folders on iCloud (Preferences > iCloud > iCloud Drive)? The bottom line is that your Quicken data file needs to be on your hard drive. If it's in the default location (in your User Library's Application Support folder), you're fine. 

Steve Schifrin

Jacobs,
Thanks for this lead. The master Quicken datefile is in my User folder->Dropbox->Quicken files, along with daily back-ups and archived files. The files are resident on each computer (on-board space is not an issue), synced by Dropbox on boot-up, and the application opens the resident file on each computer. I've had Quicken set up like this for years without issue, so this problem is a bit surprising. I don't use iCloud's Desktop and Documents option. I'll try to move the master file to the User->Application Support folder, reboot the computer and see if that solves the problem. If it does, I'll just figure out another way to sync the file to the remote computers.
Again, thanks for the lead. I'll report back.
-SS-

jacobs

There are all sorts of oddities I've seen reported over the years which turn out to be due to the file being stored on Dropbox. I don't know if that's the culprit here, but your confirmation that Dropbox is involved here makes me think it could be a factor.

The safe way to use Dropbox is to store backup files on Dropbox, but to always keep the live file locally. If you're using Dropbox because you switch between multiple Macs, either start each Quicken session by downloading and opening the latest backup file, or make a .zip copy (File > Compress in the Finder) of your live file, copy that to Dropbox, and then pull down and open the .zip file to whichever local machine you use next.

Steve Schifrin

I've noticed the same thing among many applications, which is why I keep all but all but deep storage files resident and in sync on my computers. I also use ChronoSync (since day one) to keep certain files in sync among the computers, but it's more of a belt-and-suspenders approach to making sure the latest version of the files are always on hand.
I moved the Quicken master file to the Application Support file in my User's Library, rebooted the computer, and launched the file directly from the file, not the application, and had the same issue. The list is obviously there, but I never had to hover over it before...

jacobs

@Steve Schifrin Hmmm! The drawing of menus is handled by macOS, so I'm puzzled by what you're describing. There are two quick tests you could try to see if it sheds and more light on this...

Create a temporary data file to see if you see the same behavior. Go to File > New, and Start from Scratch. Create a few manual transactions and Payees, enough to populate the drop-down menus. Do you see the same behavior, or are the menus populating correctly?

Use a different User account, or temporarily create a new User account, on your Mac. Then launch Quicken, create a new data file, and repeat the test. Is the problem resolved, or does it still persist?

Steve Schifrin

RickO, I agree, I don't think Dropbox is the culprit here. Jacobs, I will try your suggestion when I have a little more time. It's a good test. In the meantime, I started up the computer in SafeBoot mode which had no effect on the problem, and also opened a back-up file from 18 months ago, well before the problem existed, and it, too, exhibited the drop-down problem. I recall that more than once in the last 18 months, Quicken updates required a conversion of the database, so I don't know if that was much of a test...

jacobs

Steve, in that no one else is reporting this problem, I really don't think it's a problem with the Quicken code... but I'm not sure what in your environment could be causing a problem with the Mac drawing Quicken's menus.

If I understand your last post correctly, you took an 18-month old backup and tested it, and it exhibits the same menu -drawing problem -- even though it did not exhibit this problem with the same file back 18 months ago.

The two tests I suggested above should help narrow the variables, and I have one more. This would be trying the older file with an older version of the application. If you have a TimeMachine backup, you could restore a version of Quicken.app from a year ago, and then try with the 18 month ld backup. (If you don't have the old application backed up, you can download one from this page; select one from late 2019 and try it with the backup file that is older than that application. (Rename your current Quicken.app first, so you can keep track of which app is which.)

By the way, I still run Quicken on an iMac running Mojave, so I'm not thinking it's something specific to your operating system. Just to check, though, are you running 10.14.6?

Can you recall when you started seeing this problem with Quicken's menus? Did anything else in your computer environment change around the time?