Why do Last Download Dates no longer show in registers?

jaws2

This has started happening over the last several weeks, first with some accounts, now with all.  This includes EWC and Direct Connect accounts.  Given the instability of one step update this was a valuable tool to help review to ensure all updates on all accounts were performed.  While I can check the Online Center for Direct Connect accounts they rarely show up in the Online Center for EWC accounts so there is no longer any way to check.

jaws2

After combining all of the suggestions above, at the moment I now have the "Last Download Date" showing on all of my accounts.

@UKR - the mondo update, validation and super validation applied as you suggested did not resolve the issue.

@Chris_QPW - deleting the runtime.dat file applied as you suggested and clarified by @thecreator did not resolve the issue.

@thecreator - the dates were also missing from the account overview.  I suspect the source of that information is from the same place.

@markus1957 - I only had one runtime.dat file within the c:\ProgramData\Quicken directory and all its subfolders (including any hidden files.)

Eventual solution
@Chris_QPW - while as I mentioned I had already tried resetting all the accounts in question, I did it again after doing the mondo update, validation and super validation recommended by @UKR.  Low and behold all my dates appeared!  Seems the combination of all of the above cleared up the issue.  Hopefully when I try updating tomorrow and going forward, that will remain the case.

It's a Christmas Miracle!  Thanks all for the collaborative solution!

jaws2

@MauriAnne your issue is exactly the same as mine.  At times throughout this process I have had the same issue where the type of accounts that properly updated changed between Diect Connect and EWC. 

After posting my repsonse to @markus1957 indicating that I was not able to determine anything from within the text of the runtime.dat file, based on his theory, I decided to just start disabling each of my EWC/EWC+ accounts individually, going through the tedious steps of deleting the runtime.dat file, signing out of Quicken and back on and running OTC each time with a different EWC/EWC+ account disabled from OSU.  I eventually stumbled upon one EWC account that when removed from OSU allowed all the rest of the accounts (Direct Connect/EWC and EWC+) to properly show the dates.    I will run OSU update for a few days with this account removed from OSU and see if the remaining continue to update properly.  Will post back again on Friday morning (or sooner if it fails before then.)

UKR

If you haven't done so already, please do the following actions:

• Even if you are on the latest software level already, download and install the latest Mondo Patch file from https://www.quicken.com/support/update-and-mondo-patch-20182019-release-quicken-windows-subscription-product to ensure your Quicken software is up to date and correctly installed.
• Reboot Windows.
• Validate and Supervalidate your Quicken data file.
• If nothing helps, try to restore your Quicken data file from an Automatic or Manual backup taken just prior to the problems first occurring. https://www.quicken.com/support/how-backup-or-restore-your-quicken-data

 

Validate and Supervalidate instructions

First save a backup file prior to performing these steps

Validate: 

1. Click File
2. Select Validate and Repair File...
3. Select Validate File
4. If the data file contains investment accounts also select "Rebuild investing lots". If you suspect that a damaged Quotes Price History causes your problems, also select "Correct investing price history" functions "Delete" or "Repair and Rebuild".
5. Click OK
6. Close the Data Log
7. Close Quicken (leave it closed for about 30 secs)
8. Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.

Super Validate:

1. Click File
2. Press and hold both CTRL and Shift keys while you click Validate and Repair File...
3. Select Supervalidate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log
6. Close Quicken (leave it closed for about 30 secs)
7. Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.

Chris_QPW

My suggestions:

1. Delete all runtime.dat files from this folder and below: C:\ProgramData\Quicken\Inet.  Example, my main data file is called Current and the runtime.dat file is under C:\ProgramData\Quicken\Inet\Current.  This will not fix the problem, but it will remove the information so that you can clearly see when it is being properly updated.
2. Logout of your Quicken Id and back in: Edit -> Preferences -> Quicken ID & Cloud Accounts -> Sign in as a different user.
3. Run One Step Update.  Hopefully now you will get the new Last Download date/time.

jaws2

@Chris_QPW

are you saying to create a dummy user ID and log in as that, run one step update, then log out and log back in with my actual quicken ID?

thecreator

Hi @jaws2 ,

No! Sign in as a different user, causes you to Sign Out of the existing relationship of your current User ID.

Once you are Signed out, Sign back in, with your normal Quicken User ID and password, for that data file.

jaws2

Got it. I’ll give it a shot

jaws2

@UKR - thank you for your suggestions and I may try them eventually, but it sounds like your steps are in general a way to fix anomalies, not a fix specifically to this issue. 

jaws2

@Chris_QPW and @thecreator

Good news and bad news.  Your steps successfully reinstated the "Last Download Date" for my Direct Connect Accounts.  However it did not for my Chase and Discover EWC accounts.  Interestingly it did work for my Health Equity EWC account.

Also - I forgot to mention originally that I'm on Windows 10 (fully updated) using Quicken Deluxe for Windows, version R45.21

Merry Christmas!

Chris_QPW

My last suggestion would be to try to Reset the account in question.

Merry Christmas to you too!

jaws2

Thank you @Chris_QPW

I did try that on all the accounts after I sent you my last post.  I'll probably try the things @UKR suggested next week.  Otherwise it looks like I'll just have to live with it for now.

thecreator

Hi @jaws2 ,

Look in the Account Overview for each Register that you are concerned about.

markus1957

@jaws2 you may have to look a little further to find more of the runtime.dat files to delete. In my case they are located in folders called "template" and "common" as well as folders named after my Quicken data file(s).

When runtime.dat gets crossed up, it's best to delete them from all folders at the same time while the Quicken app is closed. Then open Quicken and do a One Step Update. I've had to go thru the deletions multiple times to get a clean OSU run with no errors before all accounts would show last OSU run in the register.

jaws2

After combining all of the suggestions above, at the moment I now have the "Last Download Date" showing on all of my accounts.

@UKR - the mondo update, validation and super validation applied as you suggested did not resolve the issue.

@Chris_QPW - deleting the runtime.dat file applied as you suggested and clarified by @thecreator did not resolve the issue.

@thecreator - the dates were also missing from the account overview.  I suspect the source of that information is from the same place.

@markus1957 - I only had one runtime.dat file within the c:\ProgramData\Quicken directory and all its subfolders (including any hidden files.)

Eventual solution
@Chris_QPW - while as I mentioned I had already tried resetting all the accounts in question, I did it again after doing the mondo update, validation and super validation recommended by @UKR.  Low and behold all my dates appeared!  Seems the combination of all of the above cleared up the issue.  Hopefully when I try updating tomorrow and going forward, that will remain the case.

It's a Christmas Miracle!  Thanks all for the collaborative solution!

Sam DE

Followed Chris my suggestions and I got back the download date and time make sure to delete all runtime files then follow the rest of the steps.

jaws2

UPDATE:  The fix lasted 2 days.  I'm now back to only my Direct Connect accounts showing last download date.  Tried to use @Chris_QPW steps (and yes I deleted all the runtime files first with the application closed) with no luck.  It is not the end of the world, but is certainly annoying.  It's getting harder and harder to have trust in an application I've used for nearly 30 years.

markus1957

The runtime.dat files are just text files that can be read by any text editor, i.e., Notepad, Wordpad. If you look at the file and can determine which FI is causing the errors, you can take that FI out of the OSU process and update it outside of OSU. Last time I had the issue, it appeared one FI was filling the .dat file and corrupting it. I took the FI out of OSU, ran it a few cycles, then deactivated and reactivated the problem FI.

jaws2

Thank you @markus1957.  I took a look at the runtime.dat file and while I can identify the Direct Connect accounts within it, that does not help me.  Those files all updated the date properly.  Its the EWC and EWC+ that did not update the date (After a detailed review, they do appear to have updated the transactions and balances.)  Unfortunately there is no identifying information withing the runtime.dat file to determine if any specific accounts had a problem once it went off to the Quicken cloud to get the information.

jaws2

@MauriAnne your issue is exactly the same as mine.  At times throughout this process I have had the same issue where the type of accounts that properly updated changed between Diect Connect and EWC. 

After posting my repsonse to @markus1957 indicating that I was not able to determine anything from within the text of the runtime.dat file, based on his theory, I decided to just start disabling each of my EWC/EWC+ accounts individually, going through the tedious steps of deleting the runtime.dat file, signing out of Quicken and back on and running OTC each time with a different EWC/EWC+ account disabled from OSU.  I eventually stumbled upon one EWC account that when removed from OSU allowed all the rest of the accounts (Direct Connect/EWC and EWC+) to properly show the dates.    I will run OSU update for a few days with this account removed from OSU and see if the remaining continue to update properly.  Will post back again on Friday morning (or sooner if it fails before then.)

MauriAnne

@jaws2   Thanks!    Your process does sound tedious so I think I'll wait to hear your results before I try it myself.     

For some reason I don't understand, my comment was moved to a brand new thread in case anyone is wondering what @jaws2 was replying to.  

jaws2

@MauriAnne - I decided to go ahead and post an update this morning.  With the one EWC account I identified yesterday removed from OSU, everything updated as expected today with the Last Download Date showing on all of the other accounts (EWC,EWC+ & Direct Connect.)  I then updated the excluded account from within the register by clicking on the gear in the upper right corner and selecting "Update Now."  That account also properly updated the Last Download Date.

One point of note that may be helpful if you decide to go this route, the account that seems to so far have done the trick for me is from a small financial institution in my area vs one of the national accounts like Chase and Discover.  Perhaps there is something there that has gotten less attention to detail in the development of EWC for that institution given its limited scope in the grand scheme of Quicken's base.  So my recommendation for you would be to start your search with similar, smaller localized institutions so that you might get resolution without going through every EWC/EWC+ account alphabetically or randomly.

MauriAnne

@jaws2,  Thank you so much for the advice.   I followed your suggestion, deleted runtime.data, signed out of Quicken and disabled the EWC account I have from a credit union in NY.     The good news is that the OSU summary screen displayed all the non-disabled accounts and the account list showed the correct download date.    I then updated that credit union account from the register but it did NOT show up with a date in the account list. 

I re-ran OSU with the credit union account disabled, and got the same results.

So now that we both know which accounts are causing our problems,  I wonder how we get them to fix it.  I can't imagine calling them and explaining this scenario. 

jaws2

@MauriAnne - Ha! I think you are right about that. I’m wondering if a moderator would like to chime in on how best to communicate what we have both found that appears to be an error on how EWC is handled for your credit union and my financial institution?

jaws2

@Quicken Anja can you review this thread and let us know how best to communicate the issues we are having with certain specific EWC accounts?  This does not seem like something we want to start at ground zero with since we have already isolated the problem.

mrzookie

Q r44.28 Win 11

I've seen this problem in the past and trashing the runtime.dat fixed it. It started happening again yesterday (12/31). Deleted the runtime.dat several times. Each time it worked, and then stopped. I did Validate and Super Validate, but didn't expect any help there, and there wasn't. Also logged out of my Q account and back in again. I then ran update one FI at a time does seem that its the EWC/+ accounts that are blowing up the runtime.dat. It was working fine on Friday 12/30.

jaws2

@mrzookie - If I understand how EWC works, Quicken essentially logs into each financial institution’s web site in the background, the same as you would if you logged in to their site using your browser and “scrapes” the results it needs.  So what I suspect is happening is that the financial institution has modified it web site in some fashion and Quicken has not updated their background process to reflect the change properly, causing corrupted data in the runtime.dat file.  This would account for why it works and then it doesn’t.  It’s also why Direct Connect is so much better and stable as that is Quicken and the financial institution directly talking to each other vs pretending to log in to an ever changing web site as a user.

Assuming I’m correct, what I’m not clear on is who is responsible for keeping EWC up to date.  Is it Quicken or the financial institution.  It would be nice to know so we can all pursue the right resource to try to get each impacted institution resolved timely.  @Quicken Anja can you please help?

jaws2

@mrzookie - If understand how EWC works correctly, Quicken logs into a financial institution’s website in the background, essentially the same way yiu would if you went to their website and logged in in a browser.  It then “scrapes” the results and populates transactions and runtime.dat.  When errors occur it’s probably because the financial institution has made some type of modification to their website and EWC has not been modified to account for the changes properly.  This would result in missing or corrupted information being passed to Quicken. 

If my understanding is correct, what I’m not sure of is who is responsible for keeping EWC up to date, Quicken or each financial institution.  It would be very helpful to know so we can focus our efforts to correct it on the right resource. @Quicken Anja can you help?

Chris_QPW

jaws2 said:

If my understanding is correct, what I’m not sure of is who is responsible for keeping EWC up to date, Quicken or each financial institution.  It would be very helpful to know so we can focus our efforts to correct it on the right resource. @Quicken Anja can you help?

With Express Web Connect or Express Web Connect + there are always three players in this, and it is next to impossible for the Quicken user to know which one(s) are needed to fix any given problem.

Quicken Inc, Intuit (their aggregator), and the financial institution.

You aren't allowed to contact Intuit directly for these problems, and unlike Direct Connect most likely you aren't going to have much traction talking to the financial institution.  So, contacting Quicken support and submitting your logs through Help -> Report a problem are the main ways to get the problem in front of Quicken Inc.  The "secondary" way would be reporting it here, but it is my opinion that unless a lot of people are reporting it here it isn't going to get much attention here either.

jaws2

Thanks @Chris_QPW. Unfortunately, based on my experience with them and the backlog of issues I’m seeing going months on end without resolution I don’t have a lot of hope that sending quicken a support ticket and my logs will result in much more than them telling me to do a lot of troubleshooting steps on my own install vs addressing the real problem.   Do you have better experience/results?

Chris_QPW

jaws2 said:

Thanks @Chris_QPW. Unfortunately, based on my experience with them and the backlog of issues I’m seeing going months on end without resolution I don’t have a lot of hope that sending quicken a support ticket and my logs will result in much more than them telling me to do a lot of troubleshooting steps on my own install vs addressing the real problem.   Do you have better experience/results?

I have never dealt with them.  I have been lucky enough to work out the problems I have had or over time they have been resolved mostly because Express Web Connect is a terrible connection method and most of the problems are actually temporary.  But mostly because I don't really care and if one is long term failure, I just stop updating it.

When a system is as complicated as this one with so many parties involved and you can only talk to one of them, and most likely they are just the "middleman" I don't really expect much of anything from such a system.

jaws2

@Chris_QPW Fair enough. At this point I’m operational excluding one account from OSU and then manually updating that account using the update within the register. I’ll probably go with your attitude adjustment and just leave well enough alone until if/when it becomes so cumbersome that it’s time to move on to something else. I probably would have done so quite awhile ago except for the fact that I have so much history in Quicken that I like to report on with current information. Thank you all again for your help on this. 

mrzookie

Are people still experiencing this problem? In my case, it seems to have resolved itself.