Why is Quicken changing payee names to N/A?

johna8119

Beginning a couple of updates ago, Quicken has now started renaming numerous payees as N/A. (Also the memo statements) After I change and save the payee names to the proper person/company, when I leave the account and go back to it, Quicken has reverted back to N/A. I have tried backing up the file immediately after correcting the payees, but when I restored the file, there were the darned N/A payees. Is it possible for the Quicken coders to make an update that stops this nonsense?

Thanks

UKR

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20362402#Comment_20362402

Go back to restore even older backups until you find a data file that isn't damaged (showing N/A accounts or transactions).

johna8119

I was finally able to locate a backup file, more than a month old. I restored that file, and—yay—no messed-up accounts or transactions. I updated the file, and I had to do a lot of manual data entry, but at this point, the file is intact and isn't giving me trouble.

Thanks for the suggestions. Finding a backup a month ago was key, but it was critical.

Quicken Anja

Hello @johna8119,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and telling us about your issue, though I apologize that you are experiencing this.

To start with, I suggest that you please try validating and/or super validating your data file. However, I do recommend that you first save a backup file prior to performing these steps.

Validate: 

1. File
2. Validate and Repair File...
   
3. Validate File
   
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log
   
6. Close Quicken (leave it closed for at least 5 secs)
7. Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.

If the issue persists, proceed to Super Validate. If the issue is resolved after performing validation, then please disregard the instructions to Super Validate.

Super Validate:

1. File
2. Hold CTRL + Shift and click Validate and Repair File...
   
3. Super Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log
   
6. Close Quicken (leave it closed for at least 5 secs)
7. Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.

I hope this helps!

johna8119

Hi, Anja—

No success. Even after super validating, the program keeps changing the payees. It is worse for two of the accounts, but less an issue with others. Moreover, after validating the first time, I see there is a new banking account and a new credit card account, both of which are labeled as N/A. I was able to edit and delete the credit card account, but the banking account does not give me an editing window when I click edit on the account list. Ugh.

I am now wondering if I should just uninstall and reinstall the Quicken program. Once reinstalled, I could reinstall from backup the suite of accounts that I had. Or are there other things I could try short of that. If i do reinstall the program, I would probably move the other Quicken files to another, hidden folder.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

First, check to see if the culprit may be a renaming rule. You can do that by right clicking on one of the transactions incorrectly showing N/A and see if there is an option to revert.

If there is an option to revert, that should allow you to restore it to the way the transaction originally downloaded from the financial institution. You would then want to go to Tools>Renaming Rules and delete or edit the rule causing the problem. You can delete the rule by selecting it and clicking the red minus sign or edit it by clicking the pencil icon.

If a renaming rule is not causing the issue, since you have already tried validating the file and that did not correct it, the next troubleshooting step would be to restore a backup from before the issue started and test to see if the issue comes back in the newly restored file.

Thank you.

johna8119

I don't get the option to revert. I went into a list of the renaming rules, and deleted the N/A rules. Still no improvement. Restored from a previous backup, and the payee/memo replacement continues.

Also, I still have the N/A account and can't remove it.

Further suggestions?

Thanks

UKR

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20362402#Comment_20362402

Go back to restore even older backups until you find a data file that isn't damaged (showing N/A accounts or transactions).

johna8119

I was finally able to locate a backup file, more than a month old. I restored that file, and—yay—no messed-up accounts or transactions. I updated the file, and I had to do a lot of manual data entry, but at this point, the file is intact and isn't giving me trouble.

Thanks for the suggestions. Finding a backup a month ago was key, but it was critical.

Paul Ochsner

I have this problem also. Tries Validate and Supervalidate. No luck. I've migrated from a Windows virtual machine on a Mac, to a new computer with a newly installed version of Quicken. Same problem. I don't have old backups because they existed in the corrupted data file representing the virtual machine. Ones that I saved in the cloud have been also deleted. I see a "do not rename" rule for N/A — but unable to delete it. And this is happening on originally downloaded transactions, but even if I enter the transaction manually, prior to a download, it's getting renamed to N/A. I've tried saving the payee in my memorized payee list, and it gets renamed to N/A. There's a big problem here and Quicken needs to find a solution. I can see this has happened on certain payees back into 2022. Any further suggestions?

UKR

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20364690#Comment_20364690

The only things that help are either restoring the data file from an old backup that was taken before the data file was damaged. Or, alternatively, trying to fix the payee names, one at a time.
A data table containing pointers to payee names was damaged or truncated, most likely as a result of a crash or killing Quicken via Task Manager.
There's nothing I'm aware of that could fix the problem by program, other than restoring a backup and reentering or re-downloading the missing transactions.

Create backups of your data file every time you close Quicken at the end of the day.

johna8119

I doubt that I'll ever get around to backing up the data file daily. In the interest of "clearing out trash," I've frequently deleted many of the old Quicken backups that I feel are no longer needed. I couldn't find a number of my old deleted backups, and there was a bit of panic. As mentioned, I was able to locate a month-old backup file in the recycling bin, which I used to replace the corrupted file.

My plan in the future is to delete backups that are more than a month old.

I'm still mystified as to why even a corrupted file would behave like mine did. But not to worry.