Quicken Mac Is Prompting Me To Create Sub-Categories That Already Exist And Won't Use Them

atxabp

For years, I have had the category of "Income" and a sub-category of "Self" and one of "Spouse".

Suddenly, when I try to use the sub-category of "Income:Self", I'm prompted to create the subcategory like it doesn't already exist. If I try to recreate it, that doesn't work. If I try to paste in the full "Income:Self" designation and save the record, I don't get an error message, but the change does not take effect.

I've attached 3 screenshots:

Step 1 - Existing Category Definitions
Here, you can see that the subcategory "Income:Self" not only exists, but is part of the "Used Categories" as shown at the top. So clearly, it exists, and there are already transactions using that category.

Step 2 - Create Transaction
Now, I try to create a transaction, when I type in "Income:" to get all of the sub-categories, the subcategory of "Self" does not appear. Crazy.

Step 3 - Type In Full Name
So, if I type in "Income:Self", Quicken prompts me to re-create the category. Even if I click "Create new Category", the transaction just saves with the category of "Uncategorized"

This is completely frustrating.

Quicken Jared

atxabp said:

For years, I have had the category of "Income" and a sub-category of "Self" and one of "Spouse".

Suddenly, when I try to use the sub-category of "Income:Self", I'm prompted to create the subcategory like it doesn't already exist. If I try to recreate it, that doesn't work. If I try to paste in the full "Income:Self" designation and save the record, I don't get an error message, but the change does not take effect.

I've attached 3 screenshots:

Step 1 - Existing Category Definitions
Here, you can see that the subcategory "Income:Self" not only exists, but is part of the "Used Categories" as shown at the top. So clearly, it exists, and there are already transactions using that category.

Step 2 - Create Transaction
Now, I try to create a transaction, when I type in "Income:" to get all of the sub-categories, the subcategory of "Self" does not appear. Crazy.

Step 3 - Type In Full Name
So, if I type in "Income:Self", Quicken prompts me to re-create the category. Even if I click "Create new Category", the transaction just saves with the category of "Uncategorized"

This is completely frustrating.

Hello @atxabp,  

We are sorry about this frustration with Categories seemingly becoming ineffective. Thank you for letting us know about this here on the Quicken Community.

When did this issue begin? Would it be possible to try restoring from a recent backup? We recommend saving backups frequently by navigating to File > Copy or Backup File... in the upper menu at the top of the screen. Provided that this has been done often, you should be able to restore from a backup that was saved just prior to when this issue emerged by navigating to File > Restore from backup... in the same menu. I am curious about whether or not this problem continues in the restored file.  

I look forward to your response. 

Thank you,

Quicken Jared 

atxabp

I tried a recent backup, and the problem still exists. I don't know how long ago this first started, but I've noticed it for at least the last 2 months, but just ignored it, because it was only affected a couple of categories I don't use often. Now that it's affecting a category I use for my paycheck 2x per month, it's become really frustrating.

Unknown

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atxabp

RickO - Good questions and suggestions. I am able to crate a transaction report, and I see the existing transactions. Your suggestion led me down some interesting troubleshooting:

1. I renamed "Self" to "ABCXYZ". In doing so, it shows up in the transaction report as "ABCXYZ" but is not able to be used.
2. I created a new sub-category, called "Self2". That DOES appear to be usable when creating a transaction.
3. I was then able to go back to an individual transaction, and change it from "Income:ABCXYZ" to "Income:Self2".
4. So, then I renamed "Self2" to "Self", and it appears just fine. So, this tells me it's more of an issue with that old category than the text of the category itself.
5. I then went and MERGED ABCYXZ into "Self", and voilia ... everything is now categorized properly as "Income:Self", and I'm able to use that sub-category in new transations.

So, it's almost like the workaround solution was to:

1. Rename the old sub-category to a new value (e.g. "Income:Self-OLD")
2. Create a new sub-category of the original text (e.g. "Income:Self")
3. Merge the two categories, and use "Income:Self" as the target.