Missing Files

Mark269

Version 7.1.2 (Build 701.49356.100)

macOS 13.4.1

This morning when I started quicken it performed an upgrade.

After that all my *.quicken files are missing. Everything was working fine yesterday.

I have searched my computer and I cannot find any *.quicken files except for one of the test files I created many months ago when I moved from Windows. I have looked in the usual places and done a simple search of my entire computer for these files. The most recent backup files are from a year ago. I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

Mark269

Thank you all for your help. I had set up a directory for the *.quicken files and the backup files. That directory disappeared completely. I did find a backup of that directory from a couple of weeks ago and restored from that backup which is good enough. Two unknowns are 1. How did the entire directory disappear? and 2. How have I been running Quicken without the directory being present. I do not think I will be able to answer those questions. Again, thank you all for your help!

RickO

A couple of suggestions:

1. Have you looked at the menu File > Open Recent to see if they're listed there.
2. If not, by default, QMac stores your files at Users > (your name) > Library > Application Support > Quicken > Documents. To open your Library folder, hold down the Option key while clicking the Go menu in the Finder. That's probably where you'll find the files.

Mark269

Thanks RickO!

1. Only my old test file is there. This is how I used to switch between files but after the upgrade the files disappeared from Open Recent.
2. Again, only the old test file here, nothing else.

SMS1

In Quicken, click "File" then click "Show Backups in Finder".

Hope that helps!

Mark269

Thanks SMS1!

That shows the Automatic Backups directory — the newest file there is over six months old.

RickO

I've not seen any other reports of file loss from this update and honestly, it's extremely unlikely that an update like this would cause files to disappear. That makes me think it's something else. Possibly disk corruption. Have you restarted the computer and run Disk First Aid in Disk Utility?

Mark269

OK, I just ran disk first aid in recovery mode (and rebooted). Still the same.

Strange thing is, the files you mentioned in your first post are not on either of my two backups. But I was running Quicken just fine yesterday. It is as though I went through a time warp.

Mark269

Question: If I previously told Quicken to store files in a non-standard location, where could I go to find the name of that location?

RickO

It does almost sound as if you are restored to a time before you created these new files. Strange.

If you set backups to a non standard location, then the Show Backups in Finder command will show you that location.

Normally the way to get to a previously used file is the Open Recent command. There's also a Show "filename" in Finder command in the File menu, but that only is going to be helpful if the file is already open. I'm pretty much out of ideas. I sure hope you get it figured out.

jacobs

Just as an FYI…

When Quicken Mac installs an upgrade, it doesn't delete anything. It renames your existing Quicken.app and moves it to your Trash folder, but it remains there unless you empty your Trash. It makes a backup of your data file before installing the new release, so your pre-update data file is in an untouched state. You can find that data file in your Quicken Backup folder within the Quicken folder; there is an Automatic Backups folder there, and it will be called:

      "BACKUP (Pre-Update) - [your Quicken data file name].quickenbackup

This is not something you need to enable, or can even turn off — the file is automatically created. Note this is for primary releases (7.0, 7.1, 7.2), but not typically for maintenance/bug fix updates (7.1.1). So if you can't find the pre-update backup file from when you installed 7.1, you're not finding the right location.

Also, for the future… do you have no backup of the files on your Mac? From personal experience, and the experience of many others, I can say that this is a ticking time bomb you should defuse when you're not in a crisis. The Mac's built in Time Machine software takes two clicks to turn on, and you never have to do anything to control it after that — and it continually backs up anything that's changed on your Mac, every hour. All it requires is an external hard drive. You can get very large hard drives for $100 or less nowadays, and that's a small price to pay to insure your data. Other options include paid cloud backup software, like iDrive, which have a modest annual fee. (I use Time Machine. And iDrive. And I occasionally backup my entire hard disk to a backup drive. You can never have too many backups, in my opinion.)

Mark269

Hi jacobs — Thanks for your thoughts. I have two sets of backups, Time Machine and SpiderOak. I cannot find my Quicken files on either set of backups. Strange. I have the Automatic Backups directory but the latest file is from November of last year. As a contrast, the Quicken/Downloads directory has files from two days ago. There is no Quicken file in the trash from today. When I try to Put Back the most recent Quicken file I get the message "“Quicken (701.49333.100).app” could not be put back." “NSIRD_Quicken Updater_x5scaZ” doesn't exist anymore. I am computer literate and I am pretty lost.

One question. Where do you tell Quicken that you want to store your data file in a non-standard location? Thanks!

Mark269

FWIW I found the Pre-update backups but the most recent ones are from November of last year. Same on my two system backups.

RickO

Where do you tell Quicken that you want to store your data file in a non-standard location? Thanks!

Menu File > Move To…

jacobs

FWIW I found the Pre-update backups but the most recent ones are from November of last year. Same on my two system backups.

This just doesn't sound plausible that your live Quicken data file and your regular automatic backups and your pre-update backups and the backups of all of those on Time Machine — were all deleted somehow. It's nearly impossible to alter the Time Machine history. So I believe they're on your Mac somewhere, but you just haven't found them yet.

In Quicken Settings > General, if you click the Backup Folder button, where does it show you the backup location is currently set to? Click the folder dropdown at the top of the window (it would normally be called Backups), and it will show you the path to your backup files in reverse order. E.g.:

   Backups
   Quicken
   Application Support
   Library
   your user folder name
   Users
   Macintosh HD
   your computer name

Another searching tool, without getting into complex Unix commands in the Terminal program, you might try downloading the utility program Find Any File; it will search in hidden directories that the Finder will not.

Mark269

Thank you all for your help. I had set up a directory for the *.quicken files and the backup files. That directory disappeared completely. I did find a backup of that directory from a couple of weeks ago and restored from that backup which is good enough. Two unknowns are 1. How did the entire directory disappear? and 2. How have I been running Quicken without the directory being present. I do not think I will be able to answer those questions. Again, thank you all for your help!

RickO

I can think of one way that the directory could have appeared to disappeared but still work for running Quicken. That is if somehow the name of the folder got edited to start with a period ".". Files and folders whose names start with a period are hidden/invisible in the Finder, yet their contents still exist and are accessible. Folders can also be hidden by changing a file system flag in Terminal. How this might have happened to your folder, I have no idea. This might also explain how Quicken lost track of the file after an app update.

To see if this is the case, navigate to the visible folder that encloses your missing directory. Then hit Command-Shift-Period on the keyboard. This will reveal the hidden folders/files within. If you see your missing directory, unhide it by removing the period at the front of the name, or changing the Finder flag in Terminal.

References:

https://www.macworld.com/article/671158/how-to-show-hidden-files-on-a-mac.html

https://www.makeuseof.com/ways-to-hide-files-on-mac/

Mark269

Fun idea, but a period is a character in a filename just as any other is and if a filename was changed to include a leading period Quicken would not recognize it as the same filename. For example, the filenames <filename> and <xfilename> are do not point to the same file. Similarly, <filename> and <.filename> do not point to the same file. So Quicken would not recognize the two different filenames as pointing to the same file. Has nothing to do with it being hidden or not.

RickO

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the folder that contains the file could have become invisible. Also, there are two ways to make a file or folder invisible. One is with the leading period. The other is the with a file parameter change. This is all explained in the two links I provided above.