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Problem Converting Quicken 2007 Data File

Upgrader

I just purchased Quicken for Mac (version 6.5.1). I have run into what appears to be a fairly common problem: My Quicken 2007 file is not converting successfully. I have read a number of help threads on the Quicken Community and have tried the suggestions I found there but without success.

Here is what I have done already:
• Copied the Quicken 2007 application and the Quicken 2007 data file to an external drive formatted as HFS – MacOS Extended (Journaled)
• Using that copy of the application, I opened the data file and rebuilt the indexes.
• Using Quicken 2007, I saved a copy of the data file on the same disk.
• I quit Quicken 2007, then opened the new Quicken for Mac.
• I used the menu to choose to import the newly saved copy of the Quicken 2007 file. The process seems to progress properly: I choose to upload the file to the Quicken cloud server, it uploads, appears to convert, downloads, but then there is the following error message: Could not import “filename.qdfm” An error occurred while preparing the file to be imported.

This happens when my Mac is booted in macos 10.14.6 Mojave. I will point out that the new Quicken application seems to work fine in Mojave. The only problem is the data conversion.
Just to be thorough, I rebooted the Mac from another external drive that runs Catalina. The results were identical.
Because I saw a suggestion on one of the threads that It would be helpful to compress the data file before copying it to another disk, I tried that. That made no difference either.

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Accepted answers

jacobs

Okay, so you have done Save a Copy, and you have done rebuilding indexes (Command-Option-B). Usually if both of these maintenance steps work without hitting an error, it should be able to be imported successfully into Quicken Mac.

There are are a few other things I can suggest to try.

Before going further with your real data file, it might be worth a short detour to try to import a test file. This would verify that there's nothing wrong with your computing environment which is blocking the converter. So in Quicken 2007, go to File > New and create an empty new file. Create an account and enter a couple of transactions. Create a second account an enter a couple transactions. Quit Quicken 2007, launch Quicken Mac, go to File > New > Start from Quicken 2007 file, and select your test data file. Does it import correctly into Quicken Mac? If yes, that proves it's not any problem with your drive format or operating system or the Quicken cloud converter, so we can turn attention back to your real data file.

Make a copy of your Quicken 2007 data file — the one you've already run through Save a Copy and rebuild indexes — before trying any of these.

Investment registers can become corrupted. You can run a maintenance routine to repair investment registers, but it will warn you that it will reset lot assignment to FIFO. To repair all investment registers, while in the Portfolio window, press Command-Option-L. It may appear to do nothing, but this is normal.

The table holding price quotes can be damaged, so it can be rebuilt using prices from your transactions. In the portfolio window, press Command-Option-U.

Those are the only "secret" maintenance routines I'm aware of.

The only other thing I can think of which you can try is exporting your data file to a QIF file, and then create a new data file by importing the QIF data.

To export your data to a QIF file:

In Quicken 2007, open the data file from which you want to export the data.
From the File menu select Export.
Select the Full Export option.
Click Export to create the QIF file.
Name the file something like "export.qif".

To import the QIF file into a new data file:

In Quicken 2007, from the File menu select New file.
Enter a name for the new file, and then click Save.
When prompted to create a new account, click Cancel.
From the File menu select Import QIF.
In the Open File window, select the "export.qif" file.

Hopefully, Quicken will import your data cleanly into the new file. Check around to see if it seems all your accounts are there, there are transactions in all the accounts, and that the account balances seem correct. Be aware that this brut force export/import will lose a lot of settings, as it is really just dealing with transaction data. So you will need to recreate scheduled transactions, loan setup, setup of online accounts for downloading, memorized reports, security price history, and perhaps some other things I'm not remembering. I wouldn't try to deal with any of that in Quicken 2007; you can deal with what needs to be set up in modern Quicken Mac.

So if you now have a new Quicken 2007 data file which seems to be correct, try importing it into Quicken Mac. We know this file should have no database corruption, so it should work.

Good luck, and please report back on what does or doesn't work.

All comments

jacobs

Unfortunately, the Quicken 2007 database is quirky and prone to different forms of corruption which may or may not reveal themselves at bad times. What I'd try next is opening Quicken 2007 while booted under Mojave and doing Save a Copy in Quicken. This causes Quicken to create a new file, not copying block by block like a Finder copy, but by re-writing the file record-by-record. This will likely eliminate any corruption in the data — if it succeeds. I fear that the Save a Copy will fail when it hits whatever problem the converter choked on.

If this is what you already did in your third bullet point, I'm sorry for going down a road you've already traveled. Let us know and we'll try to suggest other things to try.

Upgrader

Thank you for your interest. Having read previous advice given to users having the problem I'm having, I had already saved a copy within Quicken 2007 (the third bullet point in my original post). That produced a .qdfm file. That is the file that fails to convert.

jacobs

In Quicken 2007, open the data file from which you want to export the data.
From the File menu select Export.
Select the Full Export option.
Click Export to create the QIF file.
Name the file something like "export.qif".

To import the QIF file into a new data file:

In Quicken 2007, from the File menu select New file.
Enter a name for the new file, and then click Save.
When prompted to create a new account, click Cancel.
From the File menu select Import QIF.
In the Open File window, select the "export.qif" file.

Upgrader

Thank you for your additional comments and suggestions. The bottom line is that I have been successful, thanks to your suggestions. I am going to document my experience so that it may be useful to other late-upgraders like me.

Your idea to create a completely new file in Quicken 2007 struck me as so logical that I was disappointed I had not thought of it myself. It was a quick trial to run that could narrow the range of possible sources of the problem. I would call it a differential diagnosis technique.

I did exactly that. All of the following was on the HFS+ formatted drive.
• In Quicken 2007: File->New->File.
• I added a few bogus transactions
• Saved a copy of the file
• Quit Quicken 2007
• Opened Quicken for Mac
• Selected import Quicken 2007 file and let the conversion process begin on the Quicken cloud server.
• The conversion succeeded.

So that told me that the problem is with the file. Actually, I should tell you that I had previously tried to convert two different existing Quicken 2007 files, neither of which was successful. I have been using Quicken since 1991. The primary file has our family accounts. It’s a large file. There is a second file that is used for my business. It has always been necessary to keep those files completely separate for several reasons, hence completely separate files. The third file had a collection of “accounts” we used to keep track of various kinds of spending and intra-familial loans for our children in the past. That third file is pretty small.

So, based on my new belief that the files might have some subtle corruption, I followed your suggestion to try exporting an existing file to QIF and then importing the QIF file back into Quicken 2007. I tried it first with the small family file:
• Open the existing file in Quicken 2007
• Export to QIF
• File->New->File.
• Import from QIF
• Saved a copy of the file
• Quit Quicken 2007
• Open Quicken for Mac
• Follow the file conversion procedure
• And………..IT WORKED. The converted file came right into Quicken for Mac. A visual comparison of the balances and the registers indicates that everything came in.

The same procedure worked for my business file.

As for the big personal file, that was a little more complicated. After I imported that QIF back into Quicken 2007, the balance in one of the accounts was off. I assumed that there must have been one or more duplicate transactions that created the discrepant balances. I went through the registers side by side on separate computers. I found three duplicate transactions in the imported-from-QIF file. I deleted those and everything lined up perfectly.

I then saved a copy and used Quicken for Mac to convert the file. It took a while to convert that large file, but everything came in correctly (including all categories on all transactions going back 31 years). The only thing that I have noticed missing is the list of recurring transactions from old Quicken. I will have to re-create that.

I would add one more observation that is relevant to some other threads I read on Quicken Community. When users try to convert a Quicken 2007 file and get the failure message that says the file has a missing resource fork, I believe the file is on a disk formatted as APFS. If the file is on an HFS+ drive, that error does not occur.

I have spent much more time on this process of reaching START with the new Quicken application than I wanted or expected, but at least I am there. It’s time to step onto the learning curve.

Thank you for your interest and your help. I don’t think I would ever have thought of using the export-import QIF strategy on my own.

jacobs

I'm very happy that you were able to get it to work, and that your data appears to be intact. The recurring transactions were lost in the QIF export/import process, but that's not too hard to recreate* in the new Quicken Mac.

The missing resource fork can show up in several ways. I just recently converted my parents Quicken 2007 data file, and the first time I tried, I was shocked that it failed with a missing resource fork error. This is a file which has never been moved around, and I wasn't sure what was going on. I noticed that the file didn't have the .qdfm extension, because it dates back to the old pre-OS X days when file extensions weren't used. Even on Mojave, a file can exist without an extension. I added .qdfm, and then the file imported successfully. Who woulda' thunk it?

*Here's a heads up about a bug in the latest release involving scheduled transactions. If you click on an existing transaction and click the menu or icon to make it a scheduled transaction, it should take you to an edit screen where you can edit the transaction details or switch to a scheduling tab too establish the schedule you want the transaction to repeat. With this bug, it's not taking you to the schedule screen at all, and just making it a scheduled transaction repeating monthly. So you need to locate the next instance of the scheduled transaction, double-click to edit it, and select Edit All Instances on the blue menu bar which pops up. Now you can go to the schedule screen and set the desired interval and day/date you want it to recur. How do you see future instances of a scheduled transaction, you may be asking? In the account register, on the top right, under the Search box, there's a small clock icon and an even-tinier "v" icon; click the "v" and select from the pop-up how far into the future you want the register to display scheduled transactions. Note that you can set this for each register, so you can have 60 days for your checking account but only the next instance on a credit card account. This bug just popped up in this month's latest release, so hopefully the developers will have it fixed in the next update.

Kneebeau

Having the same resource fork missing problem. MacOS upgrade rendered my Quicken 2007 app unusable. That's why I just purchased this newer software. Both of my backup internal drive clones retained files, but failed to boot causing continued failure to restore my older MacOS Mojave and previously functional 32 bit apps. Found my internal drive had been reformatted with newer APFS upon newer OS install recommended by Apple when troubleshooting mail app glitch. Still struggling to restore my OS to run what was stable and accessible - I'm over a week in troubleshooting trying to restore where I was watching external drives disappear losing backups to new formatting - gave up and now I'm trying to go forward so I can take care of my finances. Just bought the new Quicken which reassured me it would import my older Quicken 2007 files... Currently I'm stuck again until I can wipe another drive for an older OS Mojave clean install and hope I can locate the relevant application and preference files off a backup to copy over and cross my fingers that it will run and I can eventually save/import and access my data since I'm assuming finding an installer for the antiquated intuit 2007 software is out.

I have so many other things to do and just need to pay my bills and prep taxes... damn. :/

jacobs

@Kneebeau If you have your Quicken 2007 file, here are two quick things to try. First, does the file have a .qdfm extension? I recently converted my parents from Quicken 2007 and the first time I tried, I panicked when it gave me a missing resource fork error. Their Mac is on Mojave, and the drive is AFPS. I noticed the file name didn't have the extension, so I added .qdfm -- and to my surprise, the conversion then worked perfectly.

Second, do you have any drive which you can format -- entirely or just a small partition -- as HFS+. (Even a flash drive should work.) Put the Quicken 2007 data file on the HFS+ drive and try the conversion again to see if it works.

(If you do get a drive set up as a Mojave boot drive in order to run Quicken 2007, all you need a re two files: the Quicken 2007 application and your data file. You don't need any other preference or auxiliary files to get it to run.)

smayer97

You may need the preference file for QM2007 if you are installing it fresh on a new computer as QM2007 requires "registration" and the servers to register QM2007 are no longer available. But previous registration is saved in the preference file.

(I have not tried a fresh installation in a while, so YMMV).

jacobs

smayer97 said:

You may need the preference file for QM2007 if you are installing it fresh on a new computer as QM2007 requires "registration" and the servers to register QM2007 are no longer available. But previous registration is saved in the preference file.

(I have not tried a fresh installation in a while, so YMMV).

It's been a while, but I know that I have copied the Quicken 2007 application and data file from one computer to another, and it has always worked without needing to find and move any preference file.