Bug in Quicken Backup/Restore

Herrick Inman

Quicken claims that Quicken Backup creates "an exact copy of your file" that "can be restored if anything goes wrong with your primary data file."

At the same time, Quicken admits that One-Step Update error code CC-800 is caused by running a Quicken data file that was restored from a Quicken backup file!

The inevitable conclusion is that (1) Quicken Backup does NOT create an exact copy of your data file and/or (2) a data file restored from a Quicken backup file is NOT an exact copy of the backed-up file.

In either case, there's a bug in Quicken Backup/Quicken Restore.

Chris_QPW

Believe it or not backup can create an exact copy, and you can still have problems with a restore.

The primary reason for this is that not everything is stored in the data file.

And I will be the first to state that even though people get the impression that they can create a backup “just in case something goes wrong”, this is certainly not always going to prevent problems that restoring can fix.

One in fact has to understand what restoring from a backup can and can’t fix, and it is far from straightforward to understand this.  There is a lot of naive statements by a lot of user/Moderators/support people that perpetuate this myth.

Along with the data file you have the Quicken cloud data set, you have Intuit’s caching of information, and you have the financial institution’s “state information”.  Other services like Quicken Bill Manager have similar information stored at various places.

As in example it is entirely possible that if I disable for downloading a given account for Express Web Connect that it is now in a state that if I just restored from a backup, the downloading of the transactions will fail.  The reason is because even though the data file is in the state that says it is setup for downloading, other parts of the system may be in the state of not being setup.

For a successful download all the “players” have to have consistent data of what state everything is in, and I know for a fact that it isn’t always true.

The more “players” in the flow they more likely they will get out of sync, and cause problems.

Paul Smith2

Thanks for clarifying.  I have a laptop that I use for Quicken on a daily basis and back up (complete backup) to Dropbox.  I also maintain Quicken on a couple of desktops "just in case" -- but I start these machines up only occasionally (monthly).  Of course when I do so, they are badly out of step with the laptop.  So I do a "restore from my backup" from the file on Dropbox which of course has the latest data from my laptop -- but not the latest data from Quicken's cloud sync.  

That process completes as expected,  I am then faced with a choice -- "sync this new file with Quicken cloud" or "just look at it".  

If I "just look at it" -- all is well.  The laptop continues to sync.  The data files appear to be ok. The restored desktop is apparently up to date.     

If on the other hand I say "sync the data file"  -- the process takes a long time and appears to take some data from the "out of sync desktop" into the Quicken cloud.  Now when I go back to my daily laptop, it is "out of sync" with the Quicken Cloud and takes a long time to restore itself.  Unfortunately, when it finally does restore itself -- data appears to have been lost. 

Of course, if I do a one step update on the desktop the same sort of thing happens.  The OSU automatically syncs with the Quicken Cloud and data appears to be lost.  

Is there some way to restore the backup computers to the same state as the primary laptop  INCLUDING THE QUICKEN CLOUD without doing a cloud sync?  

Paul Smith

Chris_QPW

@Paul Smith2 I think what you need to do is delete the Quicken Cloud dataset for that data file.

Create a new data file and turn on Sync to Mobile/Web.
Then select Edit -> Preferences -> Quicken ID & Cloud Accounts -> Cloud accounts associated with this Quicken ID (x).  From the dialog that comes up you can delete the Quicken Cloud dataset for the first data file.

Now when you do a restore for that data file, it won't have any Quicken Cloud dataset information to mess up your Quicken data file.  Hopefully that will fix the problem you are having.