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Unable to open source file error after backup

pnojoe

Windows 11, problem started recently with Quicken Update; I always back up to several different drives (a local hard drive, a local USB drive, and a network drive). Doing the backups sequentially and simply changing the drive letter has always worked fine. Now, regardless of which drive I choose, it works fine the FIRST time. After that, I get the error "unable to open source file" no matter which drive I choose for the next backup. But what's weird is that, after telling me it can't open the source file, when I click on OK (no choice about that), it reopens the source file just fine!

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Ps56k2

What is the path to your Quicken QDF data file ?
Do you have any of the Cloud Services doing realtime backup of that same path & folder ?

miklk

It sounds like dropbox or onedrive is locking the file while backing up to cloud

pnojoe

I don't know of any cloud backups going on. I'm not using Dropbox and I made sure that OneDrive isn't doing it. But what no one else seems interested in but bothers me immensely is: "Unable to open source file" … what SOURCE file? The Quicken data file? If that's so, then why, immediately after refusing to do the backup because it "can't open the source file" does it then have no trouble re-opening the source file?

pnojoe

Also, this always worked fine until the recent Quicken update. And nothing else has changed. So are we hypothesizing that the Quicken update caused some cloud backups to initiate themselves? I don't think so …

Dave Swan

I have been experiencing the issue also with Win 10. By temporarily disabling DropBox, backup works fine. I did so on my Windows task bar by hovering over the dropbox icon, then a right click, then selecting "Quit". I'm not an expert, but it seems to be a new feature in DropBox causing the problem.

pnojoe

Thanks for the response. Trouble is, I don't use DropBox. Anyway, my guess would be that it's a change in Quicken causing the problem, not DropBox. Hmm, I wonder if some other cloud service could be causing my problem.

Greg_the_Geek

This can happen to anyone storing their active Quicken data file in a cloud service folder. When backup is selected, Quicken closes the data file (to make sure all the data is written) and then reopens to make a backup. When the data file is closed, the cloud service tries to make it's own backup. If the cloud service backup takes too long, Quicken can't reopen the data file. Also, storing your active Quicken data file in a cloud service folder is not supported. Backups are fine.

Ps56k2

BTW - still looking for the full path name to the Quicken QDF data file - this is THE SOURCE FILE -

also - just wondering on the logistics here…. as any automatic local backup would have several folders in the path name -
which would be totally different than any other device path name … used for the Manual Backups -
just by "changing the drive letter" in the Backup text box -

Doing the backups sequentially and simply changing the drive letter has always worked fine.

Rocket J Squirrel

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20391911#Comment_20391911

This is all true, but Quicken could try a little harder. If reopening the file after backup fails, Quicken could wait a second and try again a few times instead of erroring out.

Greg_the_Geek

That's true. Maybe you should submit it as a Product Idea. 😊

Rocket J Squirrel

@pnojoe

I always back up to several different drives (a local hard drive, a local USB drive, and a network drive). Doing the backups sequentially and simply changing the drive letter has always worked fine.

I also back up to a couple of places, but I do it outside of Quicken after exiting. Remember MS-DOS batch scripts? I wrote a very simple one which uses the COPY command to copy my .QDF file to its backup locations sequentially. The script's icon sits on my desktop. Faster and easier than doing multiple Quicken backups.

pnojoe

That's a GREAT idea. Thanks! I used to be a DOS whiz (remember 4DOS?) back in the day, but I haven't written a batch file in years. Here goes!

Rocket J Squirrel

remember 4DOS?

Not only do I remember it, I continue to use its successors TCC and Take Command to this day. Way better for scripting than CMD.

Chris_QPW

For what is worth I don't think it is a good idea to try again unless maybe if they are dealing with a known race condition in their own process (which I have seen from time to time with things like Validate). In this case it might a second or two, but that is far from guaranteed. Both Quicken and Dropbox lock the data file when they are accessing it (as do other Cloud data storage systems). That means that if a person has slow Internet or a really large data file, it can be quite some time before Dropbox releases the lock on the Quicken data file. This just isn't a good thing to pursue.

My process is that I actually invoke a command file that starts Quicken with my data file, and then it does the backup when it quits, so I don't even have to invoke two things.

Actually, in my case "backup" is stretches the word a bit. I check it into Subversion (the subversion repository is stored on OneDive for backup). This means that it is compressed using a binary comparison to the last version and allows me to store years of copies in a pretty small amount of disk space.

pnojoe

The Quicken folks seem to have determined "for sure" that this is a Microsoft OneDrive problem. It is not! I do not use OneDrive (oh, it's around, but I don't let it touch my files), but I do use Google Drive, and since installing the Windows Desktop version (which allows Google Drive to appear as a local drive with its own device letter), I've experienced the same problem. Once I got rid of the desktop version, the problem disappeared. In case you're wondering, Google unfortunately does not allow the use of the desktop app without it 'syncing' with your system (i.e., it backs up your files, and you can't prevent it from doing so). Since, apparently, the problem occurs when there is any cloud backing up (whether it's DropBox, OneDrive, or Google Drive), it seems to me to be a Quicken problem!