Huge Quicken Premier Windows mess

pbug56

This is likely connected to the Chase mess, the switchover on Amex, etc. But it also has a history.

I keep 2 copies of QPW on different PC's, primary and backup. I do NOT do anything 'mobile' because I know it will badly corrupt my files, as it has in the past on several occassions. Typical symptom - it creates sort of duplicate copies with a new number attached for existing accounts. Like Checking 1, Checking 2, etc. For many accounts. I hide them, in some cases zero out and close. I do NOT have downloads going for any of the bad accounts. Another symptom - Quicken loses track of what bank or account gets downloaded to what Quicken account, just kind of random matching or the above, duplication of accounts.

On my primary, Chase seems MOSTLY correct MOST of the time, now. Amex Card seems to have made its transition OK.

Once every several weeks, I take the time (lots of it) to update my backup Quicken. So far this time it's taken a few hours. Piles of bad accounts popped up, plus I found numerous transactions going to the wrong account. For instance, checking transactions went into Quicken savings accounts.

So, I've mostly cleaned it up yet again, moving numerous transactions to correct accounts, deleting duplicate transactions, turning off duplicate accounts. I'd already emptied and closed out all bad accounts, but now I've got a whole bunch of new ones, that when I have a few hours I will zero out and CLOSE. But this is getting very, very tedious.

In the meantime, after file validation (seemed like a good idea), I've gotten a message - your last online session was not completed… It gives instructions - several, on what to do next. But to do so, you've got to close the error box with the instructions, making it rather difficult to follow those, unless you have photographic memory. OK, I can take a photo with my phone - but I shouldn't have to. Whoever designed this process has probably never had to do it in real life. I spent a pile of years as a financial (banks) software developer, and specialized in easy to use GUI's. This absolutely flunks.

Quicken, how about REAL answers, and REAL fixes to bugs, and some openess as to what's going on. I've been using Quicken a long time, and while it's getting fancier, it's not getting better.

pbug56

I left out something. On many accounts with messed up balance, Quicken has conjured up non existent opening balances - often of the exact amount that the account is out of balance. I can't tell you how many times I've found these and had to zero or clean these out. I guess Quicken is very imaginitive. And just to make it harder to navigate, the drag bar on the right that you would use to move through transactions frequently is blank. Another fun pair of bugs.

Tom Young

Despite the fact that you don't use Mobile and (I assume) have turned off Synch, Quicken actually does synch "in the cloud" many of your Accounts since the EWC/EWC+ process is now being widely used and my guess is this process of trying to run what amounts to the same data file in two places by downloading into both might be the problem here.

I'd suggest just working in one file here and making "known good" backups each time you close Quicken.

mshiggins

Be warned, though, that restoring a backup now forces a cloud sync even if you have cloud sync off.

pbug56

Why do I have this bad feeling that a file repair does as well? I wish I understood how Quicken could manufacture new accounts with bizarre mixes of transactions from multiple accounts.

pbug56

I'll add that I'm constantly doing backups. I've become rather paranoid re Quicken 'quirks'.

I do get the feeling that Quicken was more careful with the Amex transition; I waited until close to the required transition date rather than doing it when first announced.

Unknown

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pbug56

Now a new surprise - neither Chase nor Amex Cards have downloaded any new transactions since March 24. Had to manually download several accounts. Plus, another odd issue with Chase. Imagine you have a PENDING transaction. Quicken won't download it. BUT - it does take the altered balance from that pending transaction - and then forces a balance adjustment to cover the mismatched balances. Then, when the transaction is finally downloaded, it's out of balance, so does a 2nd adjustment to neuter the first one. Very clever - NOT! This is a recent behavior, can't tell if it's Chase or Quicken or Intuit causing it.

pbug56

Update. Chase sometimes works on some accounts. My credit card account stopped downloading. I finally got it working again after a reset, but oddly, the Chase web site didn't contain one transaction that QWP downloaded. Then, post the Amex changeover, it got intermittent. I did a reset a couple days ago, got it caught up, but it's not downloaded a transaction since then. I just forced an update on all accounts, and it seems to have caught up. So it's still taking up piles of my time to keep it going. Plus, a couple days ago I found new IMAGINED transactions in Amex and Chase accounts - they are always the first transaction in a given 'register', dated several or more years ago (usually the same date as the oldest real transaction). Delete these fakes, and MAYBE balances suddenly become correct.