Validate and Repair File

Haapy

I have searched for the answer and could find nothing definitive.
Please see the attached Validate DATA_LOG.
Would someone please tell me what the 2 highlighted lines mean?
Thank you.

Frankx

HI @Haapy,

On the Maximum security reference/ Number of securities datapoint - there could be a problem if the maximum security reference number is significantly higher than the number of securities (but MSR would need to be in the over 50,000 range before that would be a problem).

On the "old style Buy/Cash/Transfer transactions...461/0/0" message - I really don't know the meaning or significance of that.  But, it will potentially be helpful to know whether there were any "damaged data records reported" or any other errors.

Frankx

Haapy

@Frankx,
Thanks for responding. I have not had any errors related to data integrity, except for minor issues with individual transactions. I do a Validate and Supervalidate about once a quarter just to check. I occassinaly tells me I missed a split or a price is invalid. On these I have been able to manually correct, or ignore.

I balance all accounts monthly and periodically do a manual match (quicken to the Statement) on shares bought, sold, etc. Occassionally I will have some minor mis-matches, but I manually fix and all is OK.

This DATA_LOG report highlighted items have been around for a long time, I just finally got around to asking about it. In my searches, I have found others with these issues, but no clear explanations.

I was concerned that the maximum security # is 225 and I am at 161. I do not anticipate adding many more in the near future, but just curious.

The old style transactions issue was also out of curiosity, like what is an old style transaction and how to I modernize it?

I thought about deleting and re-entering old transactions, but I wanted to find out more info first before I perform that tedious task  (461 transactions).

My oldest BOUGHTX transactions start in 1994 which may be at the root of this notification.

For any investment that is active, I keep dividends, interest, etc. for 7 years. Annually, I delete transactions (except for splits) older that 7 years and manually update the cash balance.

For any investment that is sold, I keep the data for 7 years after the sale, then after 7 years, I manually delete the records and update the beginning cash balance. 

I have been doing it this way for many years with no issues. Rather tedious, but it keeps the records clean.

Any comments would be appreciated.
Thank you.

q_lurker

@Haapy -- It is plausible that the message is referring to buys done in versions prior to 2010, but I don't see that as particularly relevant.  The archived link you found offers no additional helpful information.  There have been line items presented in those validation reports simply for informing Quicken programmers about circumstances within the file.  Your other question fits that mold, more below.    

I see the Buy message as informative in general, not informative of a problem.  Ideally, you might see that message one time in that the old-style buys were successfully updated and not later reported again.  That does not seem to be your case.  I take it you are seeing that message repeatedly.  Nevertheless, unless you are seeing some particular problem that might be associated with old (unknown vintage) buy transactions, I would not worry about that piece of information.  In my case validate is reporting 22 old-style Buy transactions.  I have many more buys than that prior to 2010.  Indeed I have more than 30 Buys in just the first 2 months of 1991, entered under Q-for-DOS way back when.  So there is more to it than a single date.  

On the second aspect referenced and number of securities, programmers put that piece in simply because they identified cases where a user might have say 200 securities in the file, but some internal reference was being made to a far higher, say 50,000.  That was a known problem.  In my current case, I am seeing number of securities at 1534 and a max referenced of 1540.  I am not seeing any issues.  (S{ECULATION, not fact!: I have a suspicion that I may have created and deleted 6 (or more) securities in the last few months for a variety of reasons.  That may relate to the difference in the two numbers.  Almost always before, the two values have been the same.)

So I don't see a specific reason for you to be especially worried about either highlighted line in your validation log file.  Keep an eye open, as always, but don't be anxious.            

Boatnmaniac

@Haapy - Since you have expressed some concern about the number of securities limit, you might find this Support Article of interest:  https://www.quicken.com/support/size-or-capacity-limitations-quicken-data-file.

Haapy

@Boatnmaniac, thank you for that info. I am nowhere near those limits. Much appreciated. 

Frankx

HI @Haapy,

On the Maximum security reference/ Number of securities datapoint - there could be a problem if the maximum security reference number is significantly higher than the number of securities (but MSR would need to be in the over 50,000 range before that would be a problem).

On the "old style Buy/Cash/Transfer transactions...461/0/0" message - I really don't know the meaning or significance of that.  But, it will potentially be helpful to know whether there were any "damaged data records reported" or any other errors.

Frankx

Haapy

@Frankx,
Thanks for responding. I have not had any errors related to data integrity, except for minor issues with individual transactions. I do a Validate and Supervalidate about once a quarter just to check. I occassinaly tells me I missed a split or a price is invalid. On these I have been able to manually correct, or ignore.

I balance all accounts monthly and periodically do a manual match (quicken to the Statement) on shares bought, sold, etc. Occassionally I will have some minor mis-matches, but I manually fix and all is OK.

This DATA_LOG report highlighted items have been around for a long time, I just finally got around to asking about it. In my searches, I have found others with these issues, but no clear explanations.

I was concerned that the maximum security # is 225 and I am at 161. I do not anticipate adding many more in the near future, but just curious.

The old style transactions issue was also out of curiosity, like what is an old style transaction and how to I modernize it?

I thought about deleting and re-entering old transactions, but I wanted to find out more info first before I perform that tedious task  (461 transactions).

My oldest BOUGHTX transactions start in 1994 which may be at the root of this notification.

For any investment that is active, I keep dividends, interest, etc. for 7 years. Annually, I delete transactions (except for splits) older that 7 years and manually update the cash balance.

For any investment that is sold, I keep the data for 7 years after the sale, then after 7 years, I manually delete the records and update the beginning cash balance. 

I have been doing it this way for many years with no issues. Rather tedious, but it keeps the records clean.

Any comments would be appreciated.
Thank you.

Haapy

@Frankx
I decided to do a little investigating.
I did a count of the investment and cash transactions prior to 2010.  Guess what? The count was just about 461.  Is it possible that that this it the answer?
What do you think?

Haapy

@Frankx
Check this out. I did a Google search - what is an old style buy/cash/transfer investment transaction

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7881173/what-are-old-style-buy-cash-investment-transactions

And I get:

Permission Problem

You don't have permission to do that.

????

Frankx

Hi @Haapy

On the last item above (a Quicken Community "permission problem") - you are seeing that because the post (originating in Sept. 2020) was archived here in the community.  I am not sure how the community rules work with respect to archived posts.  As a "superuser" I can see the post, but I suspect there is a limitation to what others community members can view.

That being said, the Question asked was: 

What are old style Buy/Cash investment transactions?

Comment by Original poster - "I see this asked in a variety of ways but it is never explained.  I see answers like "This is a new Validate and Repair feature.." but the question remains what IS this feature? What does it mean?"

And the only answer given by another poster was:

"The reference is to this in the Validate & Repair log:

Number of old style Buy/Cash investment transactions updated: 44/0

No out-of-range security references found.

And as far as I know Quicken Inc has never explained what this means.

End of post

So, no help from that post.

Frankx

Haapy

@Frankx
Thanks for that. What do you think about my thoughts about transactions prior to 2010 being the cause? 

Rocket J Squirrel

Haapy said:

I was concerned that the maximum security # is 225 and I am at 161. I do not anticipate adding many more in the near future, but just curious.

That maximum is the highest number of securities Quicken has seen in your data file. It is not a limit.

Haapy

@Rocket J Squirrel
Do you have any ideas about the old style transactions? 

q_lurker

@Haapy -- It is plausible that the message is referring to buys done in versions prior to 2010, but I don't see that as particularly relevant.  The archived link you found offers no additional helpful information.  There have been line items presented in those validation reports simply for informing Quicken programmers about circumstances within the file.  Your other question fits that mold, more below.    

I see the Buy message as informative in general, not informative of a problem.  Ideally, you might see that message one time in that the old-style buys were successfully updated and not later reported again.  That does not seem to be your case.  I take it you are seeing that message repeatedly.  Nevertheless, unless you are seeing some particular problem that might be associated with old (unknown vintage) buy transactions, I would not worry about that piece of information.  In my case validate is reporting 22 old-style Buy transactions.  I have many more buys than that prior to 2010.  Indeed I have more than 30 Buys in just the first 2 months of 1991, entered under Q-for-DOS way back when.  So there is more to it than a single date.  

On the second aspect referenced and number of securities, programmers put that piece in simply because they identified cases where a user might have say 200 securities in the file, but some internal reference was being made to a far higher, say 50,000.  That was a known problem.  In my current case, I am seeing number of securities at 1534 and a max referenced of 1540.  I am not seeing any issues.  (S{ECULATION, not fact!: I have a suspicion that I may have created and deleted 6 (or more) securities in the last few months for a variety of reasons.  That may relate to the difference in the two numbers.  Almost always before, the two values have been the same.)

So I don't see a specific reason for you to be especially worried about either highlighted line in your validation log file.  Keep an eye open, as always, but don't be anxious.            

Haapy

@Frankx, @Rocket J Squirrel, @q_lurker
Thank you all for your responses. I have a much better insight into the log messages. Much appreciated.

Boatnmaniac

@Haapy - Since you have expressed some concern about the number of securities limit, you might find this Support Article of interest:  https://www.quicken.com/support/size-or-capacity-limitations-quicken-data-file.

Haapy

@Boatnmaniac, thank you for that info. I am nowhere near those limits. Much appreciated. 

Haapy

This ticket may be closed. Thanks.