Why is Quicken downloading or re-categortizing old transactions?

Question

Since about April i have experienced an issue in which Quicken is downloading older transactions that are already in the ledger.  If i delete them they just appear again the next download.  I have tried deleting those already in the ledger thinking it would prevent them from being downloaded again the next cycle.  Seeing this across multiple accounts.

Simultaneously I have noticed that accounts that were previously in balance are now out of balance.  I downloaded the full extent (18 months) of data from my credit union and reconciled by hand in excel.  Matched to the penny which means the error is caused in the past.  I have no idea how to reconcile since the error is so far in the past.  I hate having to put a journal entry in for no other reason than the software is buggy.  Now today I have noticed that even more transactions are no longer categorizing the same way as before.  These are transfers which impact the balances on mortgages which are reconciled monthly. I would have caught immediately if the transfers were out of balance.  Any ideas what is causing these errors?  Seems like the problem started when i upgraded version in early April to R56.9 27.1.56.9.

isthistexas · Answer

Sorry for the delay but it took me a bit to arrive at a conclusion.  My issue seems to have been caused by issues (recurring transactions downloaded after delete, changing of older category codes) with Cloud Sync.   Disabling the feature then testing changes, delete, updates are now occurring as normal.  This may be related to the concept you mentioned in that if any download methods changed which may resulted in the Cloud vs on-prem versions having different Unique IDs on the backend.

NotACPA · Answer

Have you recently changed download methods … say from Direct Connect to Express Web Connect OR Web Connect.

That can cause the FI to issue a new "Financial Institution Transaction ID" which doesn't match with that of the original txn … and it's via the FITID that Q identifies duplicates.

isthistexas · Answer

After some further research i noticed the transaction that changed categories is a bit odd.  It now shows the full amount rather than a split transaction, but the pieces remained on the transfer to account..  If i go back to the original and adjust back to a split I end up with a duplicate on the surface..  but Quicken allowed me to delete the orphaned transaction.