OL-209-B error in OneStep Update from Citicards Since 11-27-2023

JayF

I've been getting OL-209-B in OneStep Update from Citicards Since 11-27-2023. I have 3 Citicard Credit Cards. It's been working fine for decades. I have other credit card accounts, bank accounts, and investment accounts and they all work fine.

I logged into citi.com with same credentials as Quicken has, and log-in was fine with no unexpected web-page pop-ups displayed.

I have Quicken Premier on Windows 10. Updated to R53.16. No help.

Tried deleting temporary internet files. No help.

Tried deactivating and re-activating. Made it worse. It got rid of OL-209-B. OneStep said it updated, but it didn't download any transactions even though I know they existed, and it said I have a zero balance, which I don't.

I restored prior backup and I'm back to OL-209-B, but at least OneStep doesn't say it updated.

Is this a known issue, or can you suggest anything else to help me figure this out?

Thanks much,

Jay

Boatnmaniac

@Jay F - Thanks for getting back to us. The process you described for getting everything to work again is one which I've used successfully in the past when nothing else seemed to work.

Something you might want to consider for the final step of merging the data from the old accounts into the new accounts is as follows. It looks long and complex but it is actually pretty simple and fast to do and is better option, IMO, than doing the copy/paste process you mentioned.:

1. Back up your data file.
2. Delete the Opening Balance transactions in the new accounts.
3. Identify the dates where old accounts and new accounts overlap and will have duplicate transactions. Decide of those duplicate transactions you wish to keep and delete the others. (You can do the actual deletion later if you wish but at a minimum it will certainly help to know what the overlapping dates are now.)
4. In the old accounts: Left click on the oldest transaction in the register (Opening Balance transaction), scroll down to the last transaction and while holding down the Shift key click on that last transaction. This will shade all of the transactions in the register.
5. Right click anywhere on the shaded transactions, bring the cursor down to Reconcile Status and left click on Cleared. (This will change all these transactions to "C" status. You do not want there to be any "R" status transactions for what comes next.)
6. Do #4, again.
7. Right click anywhere on the shaded transactions, click on Move Transactions, select the account you want to move them to, then click on OK. This process will move all the transactions. If you have any transactions in there that have transfer categories, those transfer categories in those transactions and in the other linked accounts will get automatically updated. (FYI—If you did not change the cleared status from R to C earlier, during this move process you would need to approve the move of each transaction individually. By changing them to C status no individual transaction move approvals will be required.)
8. If you did not delete the duplicate transactions earlier, you should do that now.
9. Once done, you can do an account Reconcile, if you wish, to get all of the transactions marked as "R".
10. Check to make sure all transactions were successfully moved from the account balance in the new account is correct. Then you can delete the old account, close it or hold it Separate if you wish.

Quicken Anja

Hello @JayF,

This error occurs when Quicken is unable to read a response from the server and will usually self-resolve within 24-48 hours.

If it does not self-resolve after waiting the recommended timeframe, then we do recommend following the directions found in this support article which is deleting the temporary internet files that you mentioned. However, if the issue still continues to persist after that then, as stated at the bottom of the article, you will need to contact the financial institution directly for further assistance:

"If the steps above do not resolve the issue, you will need to contact your financial institution.  Quicken does not have access to the financial institution's servers to correct the problem. This may require you ask to speak with an online services specialist that handles transaction download issues at the financial institution.  If your financial institution states they can't assist, an escalation with the financial institution may be necessary."

Thank you!

Boatnmaniac

@Jay F - I am not having any issues with downloading transactions from my 2 Citi credit card accounts.

When you deactivated Citi Cards for your accounts (backup your data file before proceeding):

1. Did you deactivate all 3 of your Citi credit card accounts? If not, do that before proceeding.
2. After you deactivated and before you reactivated, did you go into your Citi.com online account and remove Quicken authorization from Manage Desktop Apps (Profile > More Settings > Manage Desktop Apps > check the box for Quicken > Remove Access)? If not, do that before proceeding.
3. After removing access for Quicken: Add Access.
4. Within 10 minutes of clicking on Add Access: Return to Quicken > Add Account (or Set Up Now) > type in Citi Cards in the financial institution search field > Advanced Options > select Direct Connect > Next > follow the setup prompts > when Quicken prompts you to decide what to do with the downloaded accounts data, make sure to Link them to the accounts already set up in Quicken.

I've found that for some odd reason, sometimes when deactivating my Citi Cards credit card accounts, Quicken authorization in my online account needs to be reset and this is the process for doing that.

For future reference: If you have a persistent connection issue with Citi Cards in the future, you might want to try Reset Account before doing Deactivate/Reactivate. I have found that Reset Account is usually not so disruptive to the Citi Cards download connection and Citi's authorization of Quicken so most if not all of the steps above are not needed.

JayF

@Quicken Anja and @Boatmaniac,

Thank you both for posting.

I will try all your suggestions and post back.

JayF

Hello again @Quicken Anja and @Boatnmaniac ,

Sorry it took so long to post back, and thanks again for your initial speedy replies. I found a workaround that I listed at the end of this post, but here's a summary of what I did before that.

I reverted to a backup from the day before the issue presented itself and tried all of your suggestions one at a time, including removing the apps from citicards.com and re-adding the authorization each time I reverted. When I tried to deactivate and re-authorize them, it did look like it was going to let me re-link them to existing Quicken accounts but, after I clicked Next, it said Sorry. We encountered an error. (It's not your fault.) I told it to Try again now, but it spun for an hour before I cancelled it.

I restored the last good backup and tried the Reset Account option and it looked like it worked, but when I ran OSU, I got the OL-209-B again.

I had the idea to create a brand new .QDF file and add only the three troublesome Citicard accounts. That worked in the new .QDF which led me to think that this probably wasn't a Citi issue. The only issue was that it created a placeholder entry for my previous balance, and I wanted to have all of my transactions in the same account, for reporting purposes.

I played around with exporting using .QXF format and importing them, but it wasn't working for me.

Finally, here is my workaround: I went back to my backup, deactivated the troublesome accounts, and created three Citi new credit card accounts. Instead of linking them to existing accounts, I told it to add new accounts. It downloaded all of my recent transactions with a placeholder for the opening balance, so I'm optimistic that my next step will work, but I don't want to mark this as "resolved" until I test it, in case one of the older transactions is the cause of the issue. The online balance matched the register balance so I knew the opening balance transaction was correct. As soon as I have some transactions on all three credit cards, I plan to delete the opening balance entry from the old accounts, copy the prior transactions from the troublesome accounts, and paste them into the new accounts. If that works, I'll "hide" the troublesome accounts and post back here to let you know it's resolved.

@Quicken Anja , FYI, I ran into an unrelated issue that I resolved but wanted to call to your attention in case you want to put it in the suggestion box. When I Added one of the "new accounts", I gave it a description that included the abbreviation "M/C" for Mastercard. It accepted that, downloaded the recent transactions, and showed it in my Account List, but I couldn't categorize a payment from my checking account. It turns out that Quicken accepts a "/" in an Account Description, but doesn't like it in other places, including the category field of a checking account. I edited the newly created credit card account, removed the "/", re-ran OSU, and was able to enter the categorized payment transaction from the checking account. One of the pop-ups said you're not allowed to use /, #, and something else that I didn't remember so, my suggestion is that Add Account, when creating a new account, and Edit Account, don't allow the problematic special characters.

Thanks again for all your help. I'll re-post soon to let you know if the cut and paste of all of my prior transactions causes any additional complications.

https://community.quicken.com/profile/JayF

Boatnmaniac

@Jay F - Thanks for getting back to us. The process you described for getting everything to work again is one which I've used successfully in the past when nothing else seemed to work.

Something you might want to consider for the final step of merging the data from the old accounts into the new accounts is as follows. It looks long and complex but it is actually pretty simple and fast to do and is better option, IMO, than doing the copy/paste process you mentioned.:

1. Back up your data file.
2. Delete the Opening Balance transactions in the new accounts.
3. Identify the dates where old accounts and new accounts overlap and will have duplicate transactions. Decide of those duplicate transactions you wish to keep and delete the others. (You can do the actual deletion later if you wish but at a minimum it will certainly help to know what the overlapping dates are now.)
4. In the old accounts: Left click on the oldest transaction in the register (Opening Balance transaction), scroll down to the last transaction and while holding down the Shift key click on that last transaction. This will shade all of the transactions in the register.
5. Right click anywhere on the shaded transactions, bring the cursor down to Reconcile Status and left click on Cleared. (This will change all these transactions to "C" status. You do not want there to be any "R" status transactions for what comes next.)
6. Do #4, again.
7. Right click anywhere on the shaded transactions, click on Move Transactions, select the account you want to move them to, then click on OK. This process will move all the transactions. If you have any transactions in there that have transfer categories, those transfer categories in those transactions and in the other linked accounts will get automatically updated. (FYI—If you did not change the cleared status from R to C earlier, during this move process you would need to approve the move of each transaction individually. By changing them to C status no individual transaction move approvals will be required.)
8. If you did not delete the duplicate transactions earlier, you should do that now.
9. Once done, you can do an account Reconcile, if you wish, to get all of the transactions marked as "R".
10. Check to make sure all transactions were successfully moved from the account balance in the new account is correct. Then you can delete the old account, close it or hold it Separate if you wish.

JayF

@Boatnmaniac

Success!!

Thank you for all of your time, expertise, suggestions and insights. Your 10 steps above were perfect.

I hope you have a Healthy, Happy, and Successful New Year!

Sincerely,

Jay

JayF

@Quicken Anja

I've been a client of Quicken, and Intuit before the divestiture, since 1994. Over the decades I've probably had a few dozen OL- errors downloading transactions. But nothing like this case. In all of my previous cases, "Reset Account" never worked for me, but "Deactivating and Re-Activating" always worked, except when it turned out to be a Quicken server or Institutional server issue, which resolved itself by waiting a few days, as suggested sometimes by One Step Update.

In this case, nothing worked and I had to spend many many many hours and days waiting to see if it would self-resolve, trouble-shooting, trying something, restoring backups, and trying again. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Quicken now talks to Citi using Express Web Connect instead of Direct Connect. I don't have a clue.

Whatever the case, I'm asking Quicken to provide us with a tool that totally clears out ALL interactive download communication data from an account that is "Online Setup", without touching any of the existing balances or downloaded transactions, so it looks to the institutional server like a brand new empty account was created locally. I shouldn't have had to create three brand new Quicken accounts, set them up with "Online Setup", only to then manually transfer decades of transactions. Obviously, in my recent case, "Reset Account" and "Deactivate / Re-Activate" left something behind that wouldn't allow me to re-establish two-way communications.

Thanks very much,

Jay