Is there a bug or something in Quicken?

PattiG1

The numbers in my accounts have changed. I talked to Tech support yesterday, and he saw it happen, but said they can't do anything because my numbers are my numbers. At this point, I can't use Quicken anymore because the numbers are so messed up. I have been a Quicken customer for over 20 years. What is going on?

mshiggins

That does not sound a proper response from the support person you spoke to. Did support have you try any troubleshooting steps?

PattiG1

I was restoring a backup from a stick because I have two houses, and I need my Quicken to be up to date in both places. The backup restore was fine, but afterwards the numbers began to change pretty significantly. He had me move the file to my desktop, but that is all. The problem has not gone away. If I can't solve it, I will need to stop using Quicken. I hate to do that because all of my financial data is there.

mshiggins

Oh! The backup restore process automatically does a sync to the Quicken cloud and the cloud sync can definitely cause your numbers to change. 

One workaround is to make a Windows copy of your Quicken data and use the USB stick to move the copy to your other computer. Opening a copy of the file rather than restoring does not trigger the sync to cloud.  

Tom Young

Could you add some detail to your statements "The numbers in my accounts have changed" and Tech support "saw it happen"?  What numbers are changing?  Opening balances?  Numbers associated with previously entered transactions?  Is this a situation where you're editing transactions, adding transactions, or are we dealing with calculated figures that Quicken is presenting to you? 

Screen shots of what you're referring to would be very helpful, it that's possible.

PattiG1

I will attach a screenshot of one of my accounts. You can see that all of the transactions after February of 2021 have disappeared. The balance on this screen shot says $46,514.32. On the sidebar, it says the balance is $115,553.24. I have several accounts like this. I don't see a place on this thread to add an attachment. How do I do that?

PattiG1

I'm not adding anything. Just looking at the transactions in the account. The balance in the sidebar is correct, but the payment details is a mess. If I do anything, it is likely to change the balance in the sidebar.

PattiG1

I have not been syncing to the cloud since this problem started because I thought that might be causing it. It isn't the cloud because I have stayed away from it.

mshiggins

PattiG1 said:

I have not been syncing to the cloud since this problem started because I thought that might be causing it. It isn't the cloud because I have stayed away from it.

When you restore from a backup, you are not given any choice, the cloud sync happens automatically. 

mshiggins

Here is one previous discussion reporting the forced sync on restore.  I’ve seen several other discussions about the issue as well. 

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7922115/quicken-syncing-to-the-cloud-even-though-i-did-not-set-this-up

Chris_QPW

mshiggins said:

Here is one previous discussion reporting the forced sync on restore.  I’ve seen several other discussions about the issue as well. 

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7922115/quicken-syncing-to-the-cloud-even-though-i-did-not-set-this-up

Along with what I said in that thread, I want to add this one:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7929078/warning-for-express-web-connect-and-using-old-data-files

To summarize, these days to be absolutely sure of not having problems with "sync" they have to be sure they are using the exact same data file whenever they open it.  It can be a copy, but the contents have to be exact.

And yes, I'm fully aware of the fact that rules out restoring to an older copy or one's data file.  I'm not saying that going back to an older copy of your data file is impossible. What I'm saying is that even that might cause problems that one will have to work through, like reconnecting online accounts, dealing with duplicate transactions downloading, changes in states of the Clr status, that kind of thing.

Note this isn't true if you don't use Express Web Connect or Express Web Connect + or Quicken Bill Manager.  In other words, how much, and what kind of problems you might have is directly related to what information is being synced.

The bottom line is that whatever they are using for syncing between the data file and the Quicken Cloud dataset is not good at handling mismatches between the Quicken Desktop data file and the Quicken Cloud dataset.

I will state one thing, I personally think trying to sync a Quicken Desktop data files and a Quicken Cloud dataset where either of them can be a different stages up data download and different in time of when they were updated is an extremely hard thing to do, and I wouldn't want to have to code it.  Especially with no interaction from the user to verify the merging of data.

PattiG1

Thank you. I really appreciate your thoughts. That said, I create the backup file on my thumbdrive, fly to the other house and restore that file. I have never had a problem with it before now. I have been doing this for three or four years. I don't used Express Web Connect or Quicken Bill Manager. I couldn't figure out how to upload my screen shot, but the numbers in the account data don't match the numbers on the sidebar at all. I really wish I could find a way to show you what is happening. When I restored the data file the last time, I chose to make a copy of the file instead of going through the syncing process. I thought since it had only been a few days, I could do that and then manually add the transaction from those days. Nothing seems to be working.

Chris_QPW

To upload an image just drag and drop it on the comment box.

When you don't use Express Web Connect and Quicken Bill Manager you are definitely better off, but I would say that you are out of the woods either.  They have definitely done things of late that even using restore is dangerous.  I would definitely just copy the QDF file and open that on the other machine.