Quicken budget blown away again

GuyManDude
GuyManDude Member ✭✭
edited January 2022 in Budgeting and Planning Tools (Windows)
I got the dreaded "This Quicken file contains no budgetable accounts or categories. This Budget feature cannot be used at this time" message again, and my budgets are no longer available (again). This has been happening every few months for a few years. Such a waste of time....

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  • Quicken Jared
    Quicken Jared Quicken Mac Subscription Alumni ✭✭✭✭
    GuyManDude said:
    I got the dreaded "This Quicken file contains no budgetable accounts or categories. This Budget feature cannot be used at this time" message again, and my budgets are no longer available (again). This has been happening every few months for a few years. Such a waste of time....
    Hello GuyManDude,

    I know that problems with the budget feature can be frustrating, and I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing this issue. Generally, this message appears when there is a problem with the data file. When you open your data file, are you opening it from cloud storage or an external drive? It is best to open and create a new file directly from your computer. Standard troubleshooting for data file issues can also be found in this thread: https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7851545/faq-troubleshooting-101-installation-and-data-file-problems-quicken-for-windows.

    Thanks,

    Quicken Jared 
  • GuyManDude
    GuyManDude Member ✭✭
    I am not opening the file from cloud storage or an external drive. I performed all troubleshooting steps and had no data file errors to fix. There is no rhyme or reason or correlation to any event when the budget gets blown away. It just happens. It takes a lot of effort to rebuild it....
  • garysmith87
    garysmith87 Quicken Mac Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭
    Make sure you de-select ALL your accounts from sync to mobile...then turn OFF Sync to Mobile.

    Recreate your budget.

    My guess...you won't have any problems with your budget being "blown away" as long as you avoid syncing.  
  • tdreed1265
    tdreed1265 Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭
    Mine got blown away again today. This is so frustrating.
  • garysmith87
    garysmith87 Quicken Mac Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭
    tdreed1265 said:
    Mine got blown away again today. This is so frustrating.
    Did you turn off Sync to Mobile?
  • tdreed1265
    tdreed1265 Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭
    > @garysmith87 said:
    > Did you turn off Sync to Mobile?

    Thanks for the suggestion and I'm sure this is a fine workaround, but why can't this be fixed by the developers? This never happened in the past, but now is a frequent "feature".
  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭
    tdreed1265 said:
    > @garysmith87 said:
    > Did you turn off Sync to Mobile?

    Thanks for the suggestion and I'm sure this is a fine workaround, but why can't this be fixed by the developers? This never happened in the past, but now is a frequent "feature".
    My guess is that the problem is hard to reproduce and as such the developers don't know how find the problem so they can fix it.

    You might be just now hitting this, but this problem has been reported for years now.
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  • tdreed1265
    tdreed1265 Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭
    > @Chris_QPW said:
    > My guess is that the problem is hard to reproduce and as such the developers don't know how find the problem so they can fix it.
    >
    > You might be just now hitting this, but this problem has been reported for years now.

    Thanks. I'm going to turn the "Sync to Mobile" off and see if that helps. It's extremely disappointing to hear that this is a multi-year problem as I rely on the mobile sync capability daily. I hope development is treating this as a S1 issue.
  • garysmith87
    garysmith87 Quicken Mac Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭
    I doubt it.  To be honest, Sync to Mobile with Quicken Windows has never worked well for me.  I've encountered all sorts of corruption in my data file, duplicate transactions, and worst of all deleted transactions...some of which were already cleared and reconciled.  

    I just gave up using it.  

    On the other hand, Sync to Mobile with Quicken Mac works pretty well.  Every once in a while I have to reset the cloud and turn off and on accounts to finagle sync to work, but I've become pretty good at it.  LOL!
  • Robert Sadler
    Robert Sadler Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭
    I have been having this issue for several years and I can say there isn't any 'cause' for it other than some poor programming.

    From what I can diagnose, there's a bug that is overwriting Quicken's working memory. A lot of times it doesn't affect your file data but sometimes a data structure relating to your budget gets clobbered depending on how your memory is laid out on your machine at any given point.

    So it's basically a random event though it can be frequent. I have performed the same operation repeatedly to test this and the operation will fail once and then not fail again despite numerous repeats. On the other hand, I can sit and switch views between a full budget view and another arbitrary view and after a number of times I'll get the "no budget" message box.

    There really isn't any repeatable steps that will always cause it. I just do a manual backup after every major change I make. Rebooting or using some Windows tools to clear the memory cache sometimes makes it 'go away' for a bit.

    So don't waste your time re-creating things as it'll just happen again. It's nothing related to your data file. It's a bug in their code. There are so many people reporting this that I am sure they could fix it if they put some effort into it.
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