Any way to preserve cloud data when desktop file gets corrupted?

Timothy Kevin McPike

My desktop Quicken file got corrupted — sync to Cloud hangs — after I’d done lots of work on the Quicken mobile app. So Quicken mobile and Quicken on Web are up to date. I then tried to use a desktop QDF backup file to sync to cloud but that will replace my (up to date) Cloud data with old data so I will lose all the work I did. I know there was no fix for this earlier (2020). I also know the desktop file probably got corrupted because I forgot to pause DropBox sync while using Quicken. Any advice is greatly appreciated thanks

splasher

The short answer is Nope. If it won't sync to the desktop data file or a restored very recent backup of the desktop data file, you are out of luck.

QuickUserPSP

@Timothy Kevin McPike If the backup has current data and is not that old, I think you can go ahead and say "Ok" to that warning and sync the data file and cloud file. What troubleshooting steps have you done so far? The best thing to do before anything else is a data file validate or super validate. When you do the validate make sure that sync is turn on.

Validate:

1. Go to File in Menu Bar
2. Click Validate and Repair File...
3. ChecK Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log

Super Validate:

1. Go to File in Menu Bar
2. Hold CTRL + Shift and click Validate and Repair File...
3. Check Super Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log

After both validates complete, try the sync again. If the issue remains, then do the backup restore, and re-sync.

QuickUserPSP

@Timothy Kevin McPike - please make a file backup anytime you make any major changes or do troubleshooting steps. I forgot to mention this.

splasher

The short answer is Nope. If it won't sync to the desktop data file or a restored very recent backup of the desktop data file, you are out of luck.

Ps56k2

just following along…

So - you are saying that if there are entered transactions in the Quicken Cloud from Quicken Web or Quicken Mobile -
and you Restore your QDF - the desktop will NOT sync and download those entered transactions ?

Timothy Kevin McPike

correct. The corrupted QDF file hangs when I try to sync. The restored backup QDF may or may not sync — but I didn’t go ahead and try to sync it because it gave me a warning that it would overwrite the current cloud data with the older QDF data.

QuickUserPSP

@Timothy Kevin McPike If the backup has current data and is not that old, I think you can go ahead and say "Ok" to that warning and sync the data file and cloud file. What troubleshooting steps have you done so far? The best thing to do before anything else is a data file validate or super validate. When you do the validate make sure that sync is turn on.

Validate:

1. Go to File in Menu Bar
2. Click Validate and Repair File...
3. ChecK Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log

Super Validate:

1. Go to File in Menu Bar
2. Hold CTRL + Shift and click Validate and Repair File...
3. Check Super Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log

After both validates complete, try the sync again. If the issue remains, then do the backup restore, and re-sync.

QuickUserPSP

@Timothy Kevin McPike - please make a file backup anytime you make any major changes or do troubleshooting steps. I forgot to mention this.

Timothy Kevin McPike

thanks everyone for the help. Since I would only have lost a couple of days of Cloud data, I went on Quicken for web and printed out a CVS file of my most recent transactions to get the categories and tags I’d entered for them in Quicken mobile. I then restored an older, uncorruped QDF backup. I was able to successfully do a One Step Update with the older QDF file to bring my transactions up to date (downloading from my banks in the one step update) then manually categorized and tagged the newer transactions from the info on the CVS file. I did lose split-category info and attachments but I had separate pdf copies of the attachments elsewhere so I can manually re-attach those.

Quicken really needs to make the cloud data into a source to restore from.

PS The QDF file got corrupted because I failed to pause Dropbox syncing before I opened Quicken (My Quicken QDF file resides in Dropbox). Once a QDF gets corrupted that way, even super-validating failed to repair it—the QDF will hang and freeze when you try to sync to Quicken cloud.