alternate register rows turned black

enirevets

HI - Somehow I seem to have accidentally selected every other row in every account register to display as black. Was working away, all was find, began a One-Step Update, when suddenly on the main screen behind the OSU, my register display changed as described. Have checked register settings including global settings. Have closed & reopened Q. Have restarted computer. Have discovered (by accident) that pressing Ctrl and clicking on a line temporarily "un-blacks" the line - i.e., makes it visible again - [Removed - Profanity] Ideas?

Quicken Anja

Hello @enirevets,

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

In order to better assist you further, could you please provide a screenshot of the issue you described above? If needed, please refer to this Community FAQ for instructions on how to attach a screenshot. Alternatively, you can also drag and drop screenshots to your response if you are not given the option to add attachments.

Thank you!

RalphC

I've never seen that happen but it sounds like a confused graphics display card. As a first troubleshooting step, go to Edit > Preferences > Register > Colors, and click on Restore Defaults.

enirevets

Attaching screenshot.

The "default" (since this error happened) is that, in any account register, every other line shows with a white background (as normal), while every alternate line - which would normally show as light blue - instead appears black.

Clicking on any one line has the effect of highlighting it; i.e., if I click on a white line, it shows blue, and the black lines remain unaffected; if I click on a black line, it temporarily reveals that line - showing it in blue, with all other lines (black and white) remaining unaffected. For example, in the screenshot above, I have manually clicked on the 12-1-22 interest line, temporarily making that line visible. Clicking on any other line - either a line that is currently blacked out, or a line that is displaying normally as white - will make the line previously highlighted (the 12-1-22 line) go back to black.

enirevets

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20380049#Comment_20380049

I already tried that - no luck.

Also, I already tried: from account register settings > global preferences for all registers > row style - changed from "shaded" to "outlined" - no luck. Just for kicks, I also clicked on the "register preferences" at the bottom of that drop-down, which redirects to the same preferences window as suggested by RalphC; for more kicks I tried each of the options under "Register row spacing", and under "Register Appearance" in addition to the Colors I also looked under "Fonts" just in case there might be anything there looking possibly useful. No luck with any of these.

Appreciate any further suggestions anyone might have.

enirevets

Forgot to attach screenshot showing the account register settings - global preferences to which I referred above.

RalphC

Have you tried rebooting your system? Better, completely power down the computer and wait 10 seconds or so for any capacitors to completely discharge. Power back up and run Quicken.

I also note that your taskbar appears to be the same color. Did you recently alter Windows colors?

enirevets

Yes, have rebooted (that's the short version.)

The long version is: I've closed & reopened Quicken multiple times since the problem first occurred on Aug 21; have soft-rebooted and then hard-rebooted.

Not sure what, if anything specific/technical, you meant by "confused" graphics card. Actually I suspect this machine has integrated graphics, not a separate card; but am also thinking this may never be resolved. The machine is 12 years old and overdue for replacement anyway, and if the current display problem was caused by some unspecified and possibly one-time electrical glitch, not a previously known phenomenon that others have experienced… maybe it's the last nail in the coffin. I had done some shopping around earlier this year and was close to making a purchasing decision at one point, but didn't get it done that day and haven't gotten back to it since.

mshiggins

Here is a previous discussion where two users had this issue and resolved it. In both cases, the issue was related to data corruption. One user resolved the issue by restoring a backup taken before the issue started. The other user did a complete export and reimport of their data.

Full details here:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7919853/blacked-out-register-lines

enirevets

Thanks for info, mshiggins. Read through that thread from last fall. It mostly made sense to me but I'm going to step away from computer for a little while to clear my head, & then come back to this. In meantime, four notes:

1. Am reluctant to try restoring from an older backup because it's going on 3 weeks since the problem started, and I'm not sure I could remember/recreate everything from those 3 weeks accurately.
2. Am more inclined to try the export/reimport (after the above-mentioned step away for a mental break.)
3. For whatever it's worth: one of the users in the thread from last year indicated a connection to transaction dates. He said all past transactions showed lines blacked out, but FUTURE transactions did not - any future transactions entered in register ahead of time, appeared normally. That is CONSISTENT with what I'm seeing now. HOWEVER this user also said he was able to replicate the problem on a test basis by entering a dummy transaction with today's date - that showed blacked out - but then he changed it to a future date, and it appeared normally. This is NOT consistent with what I'm seeing - I tried this test but was NOT able to replicate the problem.
4. I also tried the "validate" and "supervalidate" suggestions from last year's thread, with similar results (i.e. the problem still persisted after both of those attempts.) I did notice that the "supervalidate" log file said there were 6 damaged transactions and it suggested I delete & then re-create them. However, those transactions were all from back in 2020 - so, why would they have never caused a problem until now? - and furthermore, even if they are truly the cause, I'm reluctant to try to delete & re-create because that was early in my Quicken usage, when I didn't understand how transfers work, and so I was entering things incorrectly. Thus, if I attempt to change them now, I'm afraid it will mess up my present-day reconciliations, and will be especially hard to "re-create" since back then I ended up having to manually enter adjustments to reconcile the affected accounts; and being transfers, changing one transaction could affect two different accounts… it just seems intimidatingly complicated.

Signing off for now.

RalphC

Well, you have nothing to lose because it's broken as it exists now. Make a backup of your current file in a safe location. Try one or both of the remedies. If neither works, you can always restore the backup you just made. But, if one of the solutions works, at least you'll have a data file that's not corrupt. I know you're not looking forward to it, but rebuilding the past three weeks is the course of action that I would take at this point and before you accumulate even more transactions, even if you have to use some register balance adjustments to agree with bank statements.

If you do purchase a new computer (and you will someday), you don't want to start out with a corrupt data file (if, in fact, that's the issue).

sfladye

It just happened to me. I created a new file back in July 2023 because the previous file I've been working with got a lot of errors somehow the system added a lot of unentered transactions which I can't look back to 3 years worth of data to check each transactions. I opened my new file and entered about 15 transactions. I was trying to backup my entries and popped up a message window saying could not backup file. I thought it was my problem of my external harddisk so I tried to backup on my desktop disk and the same message popped up. I closed the file and reopen again then all the transactions by accounts showed alternate black line transactions. See attached. Mine is worse because you can't read words on the black lines transactions except if they are in negative balance in red.

Technical team please help to sort out this problem. I am on Quicken annual subscription and I believe the auto update has bug or something if more than one person getting this within 1 months time.

Thanks

enirevets

It [might] be fixed! (More below.) Ralph C, thanks for your reply on Sept 5 that "you have nothing to lose…" That helped get me past my hesitation. (The fact that it's now been another week was more due to other daily life stuff, than to my trepidation about further messing up my Quicken. Had a car breakdown, friend in hospital, etc., & am just now finally getting back to this.)

sfiadye…

1. (By the way, yours does look exactly like what I was experiencing. "You can't read the words on the black lines transactions.")
2. ANYWAY, if you haven't already I would STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to go back & read the threads from last year, linked above by mshiggins on Aug 31. What eventually seems to have worked for me was the export & reimport, following the exact steps posted by user Ssams last year. (With the same caveat that in my new data file, while everything else looks good, my accounts are no longer set up for online downloading. I haven't addressed that yet.)