Memo/notes (Q Mac)

KL_#1947

Has Quicken changed the amount of information I can enter in the "memo/notes" field of my ledger?

Also, why does a "frame" appear when I hit return?

RickO

Let's start with which version of Quicken you are using. And please post a screenshot of the "frame" you are seeing.

KL_#1947

RickO

Thanks for your reply to my question. I was finally able to connect with a Quicken tech. Spent about an hour on the phone going through all possibilities, but could not fix my problem. I am on the most current version of Quicken and everything was working fine until yesterday when the problem arose. The tech has filed a complaint and I will call on Monday to see what, if anything, can be done.

jacobs

Well, nothing changed with Quicken yesterday, right? There hasn't been an update in the couple of weeks. So did something else change with your computer? Did you update your operating system? Which version of operating system are you running?

To answer your question: no, there is no (new) limit on the number of characters in the Memo/Notes field.

As RickO suggested, a screenshot would really help us understand what you're describing as a "frame" after entering a transaction. It sounds like it could be a macOS accessibility feature, but without seeing it, it's hard to know.

I'm concerned that you said you spoke to Quicken Support on Saturday, because their phone support is not open on Saturday; only Monday-Friday. (On the weekend, there is only chat/text support.) Quicken phone support can, with your permission, screen share with you to see what you're seeing. I just want to make sure you weren't speaking to some scam company purporting to be Quicken who will shake you down for money. (Quicken Support is free.)

RickO

"shake you down for money"…. Or possibly worse, hack into your computer and gain access to your financial accounts and other personal information, or hold your data hostage until a ransom is paid.

KL_#1947

Jacobs, Thank you also for your reply. First, to ease your concern about the Quicken tech…I reached him through the Quicken chat on their website contact. When the "bot" didn't have an answer, it gave me to a "live" chat person. When that tech couldn't give me an answer, he called me and that is when we spent time on the phone trying to figure out what was happening. He did do a screen share…something I'm always leery of, but since I was the one who initiated the contact through Quicken, I felt a bit more at ease. He could clearly see what is happening and also the "frame" I mentioned.

The tech also suspected that it might have something to do with my keyboard, but my computer is brand new, as is the keyboard, and everything, including Quicken, which I have kept up to date, has been working fine until just a couple of days ago. For some reason, ONLY Quicken has started having this problem with my entering new information in all of the ledger fields.

The tech has given me a case number to refer to when I contact customer service on Monday. I hope they can figure out what is happening. I don't know if Apple tech support would be of much help since this problem is only happening with Quicken.

Thank you and RickO for your concerns and trust me…I share them as well as I am always very careful about giving out any information, except when I have initiated the contact.

RickO

It would still be very helpful for you to show us a screenshot of the "frame" you are seeing. Honestly, we don't know what you mean by this. A picture is worth a thousand words.

jacobs

@KL_#1947 As @RickO has said, sharing a screenshot could help. Sometimes a fellow user may recognize something which a Quicken representative doesn’t, especially if it’s caused by something external to Quicken — which I still suspect based on what I’m envisioning from your description.

Meanwhile, thanks for sharing that the Quicken chat agent called you. I was under the impression that chat agents only did chat, and it’s interesting to hear that they have the capability to do outbound calls to try to resolve customer problems.

KL_#1947

Thanks to both RickO and jacobs for your suggestions and input. Since this is a public forum, I don't feel comfortable doing a "screenshot" as you suggest. Since I have had communication with a tech at Quicken and he has done a "screen share" with me to view the actual problems, I will contact tech support tomorrow morning and see if they can come up with a solution. If that fails, I will uninstall and then reinstall Quicken on my computer and see if that does the trick. I am hoping my call to tech support in the morning will bring some resolution.

Thanks again to you both for your helpful input and offers to assist.

jacobs

@KL_#1947 For the future, people post screenshots on this site all the time. Of course, no one should post personal data. You can just create a dummy transaction to illustrate what you're seeing:

And/or black out any personal data:

But if you'd prefer to pursue this with Quicken Support and drop your inquiry here, that's fine. Best wishes.

RickO

Also, we're not asking for a screenshot of the entire screen, just the "frame". Although not knowing what you mean by frame, I suppose that could require the full screen, in which case you would need to redact as suggested by @jacobs. In macOS, if you hit Cmd-Shift-4, you can screenshot just a portion of the screen. While that is active, if you hit the spacebar, you can select just one window to screenshot.

KL_#1947

RickO and jacobs,

YAY!! Just to give you an update…I got a WONDERFUL tech at Quicken this morning who resolved my problems in about 5 minutes. Both with the field entry restrictions and the "frame". Apparently she has had others with this same experience. It appears that when I switched my keyboards from my old computer to my new one, it defaulted to "Full access" in the settings. She had me turn that off and VIOLA! I am so appreciative of her assistance and knowledge of the problem…made my day!

Thanks again to the two of you as well for your persistent willingness to help me out.

jacobs

@KL_#1947 Exactly along the lines of what I had been thinking. I'm glad you got it resolved. And I'm glad to hear that you had two good, helpful interactions with Quicken Support representatives in doing so. (On this forum, we more often hear complaints about Support reps not being able to resolve issues, so it's nice to hear the success stories, too!)

KL_#1947

jacobs, I just don't understand why the keyboard default would only affect Quicken and nothing else. Oh well, it's fixed and I'm a happy camper.

jacobs

The macOS setting did affect other applications as well, but you either aren't using ones where it's as apparent, or didn't notice it was happening. Quicken has multiple windows, panels panes, tab bars, and other user interface elements that the accessibility controls in macOS are designed to make navigable via keyboard.

Just to illustrate that this is so, go back to System Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard and click Full Access on; you'll immediately notice the left panel with all the System Settings options gets the "frame" around it. In Safari, on this website, typing in the "Leave a Comment" box gets the frame around it. (I'm assuming your new Mac is running macOS Ventura 13.3.x.)

Also, the Full Access setting disappears after a period of time. On my Mac, it's set to 15 seconds, which I assume is Apple's default. If you click the little "i" icon to the right of the Ful Access on/off slider, a small window will pop up where the time duration can be customized.

And now that you know all this, you'll probably never use this feature or knowledge again! 😂

KL_#1947

All this information is good, even if I don't use it…at lease not now. However, if anything does happen again, I'll take a look at that setting again. When I was on the phone this morning with the tech, we did turn the Full Access back on to see if it affected my Quicken program again, and it did, so we turned it back off. I didn't notice (since the problem started) that there was a time that when the problem went off, but will check, just out of curiosity, to see if that does have a time setting.

Thanks for all the input.

KL_#1947

jacobs…just checked the time setting you mentioned and it is set at 15 seconds. However, it never deactivated the problems (3 days).