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Bill Manager - buggy and unreliable

Marc D Anderson

For as long as Bill Manager has been available, it's been buggy and unreliable for me. Recently, it got disconnected from my bank yet again (CitizensBank) and I'm trying to reconnect. Every time I've tried over the last week or so, I get the terms and conditions popup, and when I click the Agree button, I get an error:

Quicken encountered an error.
Please try again in a few moments.

Needless to say, in a few moments, nothing is different - nor is it in a few days. Does anyone else have these issues? I've used Quicken since the mid-1990s, and the prior incarnations of bill paying were much more reliable.

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Comments

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @Marc D Anderson,

If you don’t mind, could you please provide a screenshot of the error message you described receiving? 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. Please remember to redact any personal information as needed.

Thanks!

Marc D Anderson

@Quicken Jasmine - Sometimes when I click on the Set up Bill Manager button in Online Services for the bank account, Quicken crashes completely. I've been sending the error reports when that happens (does anything ever happen with those?). Other times I get the error I described above, as shown in the attached screenshot.

I've tried both in the Citizens Bank account Online Services settings as well as in Bills & Income / Pay Bills with Bill Manager. The screenshot below is from the latter, as Quicken keeps crashing today when I try in the Citizens Bank settings.

The worst part about this is I've set up Bill Manager probably at least 6-8 times, used it for a few months, and had my connection to Citizens Bank break, requiring me to set it up again.

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @Marc D Anderson,

Thanks for providing more information.

First, I suggest you try signing out of your data file completely and then signing back in to refresh the registration token for your Online Connected Services. However, I do recommend that you first save a backup file prior to performing these steps.

Navigate to Edit
Preferences...
Quicken ID & Cloud accounts
Click Sign in as a different user (or it might say Sign in using a different Quicken ID)
Follow the prompts to Sign Out
Sign back in using your Quicken ID (email) and password (this screen is not a pop-up box)

Let me know how it goes!

Marc D Anderson

No joy. I've tried several times, in different order, etc. Same behavior.

Quicken Jasmine

Hi @Marc D Anderson,

Thanks for attempting those troubleshooting steps, let's try a few more things to see if we can reach a resolution.

Next, 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:

File
Validate and Repair File...
Validate File
Click OK
Close the Data Log
Close Quicken (leave it closed for at least 5 secs)
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:

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

Please come back and update us on the results.

Marc D Anderson

No luck, @Quicken Jasmine.

UKR

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20395976#Comment_20395976

Just trying to follow up …
Has this problem been resolved or are there still issues contacting the Quicken.com servers?

Marc D Anderson

Still problems. None of the suggestions above worked.

I'm now paying my bills directly through my bank instead of Quicken. As a ~25 year user of Quicken, I'm not very impressed.

UKR

Sorry to hear that things aren't quite working for you the way they should, in an ideal world.
In some way, you can blame the banks and the government for changing things around, in an effort to make it more difficult on hackers worldwide to attempt to break into bank servers and do damage.
Making those changes makes it harder (or should I say, next to impossible) for third party data aggregators like Quicken and Intuit Inc. as their service provider to get the job done.

So, yes, IMHO you are better off paying your bills either directly thru the bank's website or by allowing the biller to automatically debit your bill or credit card statement balance from your checking account on due date. (I've been doing the latter for many years, even before the Internet and transaction downloading were invented and I've yet to miss a payment)

If you're having occasional or regular issues with Quicken complaining about "Oops, something went wrong" or "Check Internet Connection" …
• To make sure that Quicken is allowed to update and save its configuration files please check if Windows Defender Controlled Folder Access feature Ransomware protection is enabled.
If it is, configure it to add Quicken as an "allowed app" without turning off Ransomware protection. Perform the last step in

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7857675/faq-windows-defender-controlled-folder-access

• Have you recently enabled a VPN?
If so, this might be the problem. Try turning the VPN off, reboot with VPN disabled and see if that helps.
• Is there a corporate or otherwise external firewall getting in the way? Contact the IT people maintaining the firewall and ask for permission.
• If you're running Quicken and Windows under a VM, ensure that the VM does not block any incoming or outgoing IP ports.
• Does your Antivirus software allow Quicken to connect to the Internet?
Quicken needs to be able to establish outbound Internet connections for the program to work.
For example, in McAfee Firewall, one user states "By editing the Quicken Firewall entry Selecting Incoming and Outgoing, and changing it from "Default" to "Open to all devices" it now works without having to turn off the entire firewall!"
See https://www.quicken.com/support/configuring-firewalls
Check your firewall settings and ensure the following three entries are present:

If necessary, contact the Antivirus / Firewall vendor's Support Center for assistance.
• In Windows 11 or older Windows systems go to Windows Control Panel and select Internet Options (or in Internet Explorer, click on Tools / Internet options.)
Click the Advanced tab.
Scroll down the list to "Use TLS 1.x" and click to put checkmarks on all available choices even though some of them are no longer supported: "Use TLS 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 (if available)"
Turn off "Use SSL 3.0"
Click Apply. Reboot.
• If all else fails: Try rebooting your network router. When done reboot your PC
• Please let us know which of the above solved your problem.

Chris_QPW

Here is my opinion on this. Don't bother trying to get this to work.

For as long as Bill Manager has been available, it's been buggy and unreliable for me.

I tried to get "Bill Presentment" not even trying to pay bill through this system for years, and my experience was the same as yours.

The system is just inherently unreliable.

I think there are bugs in Quicken, but even if there weren't the very fact that of how this is being implemented by the third-party service (ad hock trying to log into a "biller's website") it is bound to be unreliable.

Marc D Anderson

I don't have any problems with Quicken connecting to the Internet and downloading transactions, etc. The issues I have are with Bill Manager.

I, too, use credit cards and payment directly with vendors where I can. But Quicken offers Bill Manager (which replaced a perfectly good Bill Pay feature years ago) and it ought to work. I've never found it to work very well. Like I said in the title of this post, it's buggy and unreliable. Since I can't even get it set back up, I'm using other payment methods, including writing paper checks again. It feels like it's at least two steps backward.

Chris_QPW

But Quicken offers Bill Manager (which replaced a perfectly good Bill Pay feature years ago) and it ought to work.

It should be noted that Quicken Inc had no choice in the dropping of the old bill pay system, the third-party provider got out of the business. And yes, they had a much better way of doing it. What they did is setup ACH transfers or wrote checks if that wasn't available. No "Bill Presentment"/no trying to read biller's websites. I find it ironic that the third-party service/Quicken Inc are now putting in place an ACH transfer system, but only if the "write to the biller's website" system first fails.

Mike4

I agree that Bill Manager is very unreliable. Payees that have worked frequently just stop working. I have had some kind of problem with almost every one of my payees at some point. It seems to waste more of my time than anything trying to keep them all going, with the never-ending cycle of "delete the payee and set it up again - nope still not working". Seems to take Quicken forever to fix anything.

Marc D Anderson

I was just fiddling around with the settings, and I think I got Bill Manager unstuck for myself. Try going to Bills & Income, then click on the gear / Review and Repair / Review and Repair Online Billers. I had a couple billers which we're in a broken state, and this removed them. Now I can start the flow through Pay Bills with Bill Manager again.

sdwagner

[Removed - Rant]