Mobile, Sync, Classic synchronization issues particularly with attachments

brocksdad

Hello,

I am very frustrated with the poor implementation between the classic desktop, cloud sync, and mobile.

I use Quicken Classic Business & Personal. As a business user, I need to document all of my expenses by categorizing them, tagging them, and adding receipts as attachments. Seems like a pretty fundamental need for a business accounting package. When I add receipts in mobile, they don't show up in cloud or sync to my mobile, when I add receipts from my classic software on my desktop and sync, the receipts don't go to the cloud, I have on many occassions lost receipts that were added via mobile because we Quicken always recommends that your reset cloud data to "solve" problems. It is maddening. Can someone from quicken provide better insight into why the synchronization between mobile, cloud, and desktop classic is so frail? If there is something that I can do to in my behavior to prevent this, I would be happy to do it, but Quicken does not provide much guidance.

Today my frustration is that I have again added receipts to mobile. They are not in the cloud. When I try to initiate cloud sync from my classic installation, the sync hangs at "preferences"

I should mention that my current data file is 221mb. I have been using quicken for a very long time. I have to periodically create a new file because Quicken chokes on the data that I store trying to run my business and I start with another file every few years.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @brocksdad,

To help troubleshoot this issue, please provide additional information. When did you first notice this issue? Are you uploading the attachments as .PDF files? If not, what kind of file are they? How often does this issue happen (for instance, do none of your attachments upload to the cloud, or is it only some that fail to upload, etc.)?

I look forward to your response!

brocksdad

Hi Kristina,

The issues have gone on for several years. Yes many of the attachments are pdfs. As I mentioned, I have had problems over multiple years with the functionality. I reached my patience again when I had used the mobile app to take images and they were not posting to the cloud or synchronizing back to my local computer. I lost a slew of receipts that I had spent several hours putting in via the mobile app about 3 months ago and fortunately as I was working the other day I only tried a few and then realized it was again not synchronizing them from the mobile app, so posted my question about why it is so frail. After I posted, I did what I typically do:

Ran the file validation utility and reset my cloud data. After that, I performed several tests to make sure everything was working….. again…I was able to add receipts via the mobile app and they are now synchronizing again to cloud and my pc. However, my question remains! Why is the process so frail. I can't check every time I take an image of something using the mobile app to make sure that it made it my home pc because I might as well take the paper receipt home and scan it from my computer.

I have researched and noticed the comments regarding pdfs. not available in the app that are attached from the pc. I decided to do some testing on that since you asked the question. Here's the quicken instruction for adding attachments so they are accessible from mobile:

"In the Select Attachment File dialog, select the file to attach, or if you're working with a scanner, select the imaging device to use. You can attach any file. From your attachments, a .bmp, .gif, .ico, .jpe, .jpeg, .jpg, .pdf, .png, .tif, .tiff or .wmf files can be uploaded to the cloud and be viewed on Quicken mobile, The cloud will store up to three attachments per transaction." (sourced from: https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3216349 )

I tested adding a pdf via my desktop and synchronizing. I signed out of the mobile app and back in and the pdf attachment was not showing in the mobile app. I tested adding a png from my desktop and synchronizing. The image didn't show up in the mobile app until I signed out and signed back in, but then it did.

So it appears that we still cannot see pdf's in the mobile app even though the quicken instructions state that we can.

Again - question is why is it so frail and why do I have to spend so much time validating.

Thanks for your help.

brocksdad

New day.. synchronization broken again. I attached a couple of receipts using mobile app. Synced the cloud data from my desktop and they were there. I'm sitting at my desk working on my backlog of receipts. As I'm using Quicken I decide to take a look at a renaming rule. I deleted 1 rule. I attached about 8 receipts using the mobile because it's easier to snap a picture of them, then synchronize than it is to load into scanner, etc.etc. So I did about 7 receipts. I decided to see if sync was going to blow up. I hit the cloud sync button and the sync started, then hung on "renaming rules" Synchronization hung. So I waited. I eventually killed the process and reopened quicken. Tried to do a sync again and now I'm stuck on Processing Data. Eventually killed the process again, then reopened quicken. Ran the validate tool. Started a sync again, stuck on "processing data" So here I am again. In order to get it working again, I'll have to reset cloud data losing the 7 receipts that I attached via mobile.

Frail is not the word… does anyone use mobile reliably and not run into these synchronization problems? Synchronizing between mobile, cloud, and desktop is just so unreliable as to be unusable. Does anyone have any secrets as to how to avoid losing data from the mobile app?

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your replies,

You mentioned in your original post that you periodically have to create a new file. Has this issue persisted across multiple new Quicken files, or has it been happening only in your current Quicken file?

Is the issue you mentioned with the Sync hanging (at preferences in your original post, then on renaming rules & processing data in your most recent post) a relatively new issue, or has it been happening for about as long as the issue with attachments not syncing from mobile to the desktop file?

I've been using mobile & web for a couple years with very few issues. I have noticed that the VPN I use on my cell phone tends to interfere with uploading attachments to the Quicken Cloud through the mobile app.

Thank you!

Neecie

I have the exact same problem. I would love to use the mobile app to enter receipts, but I can't because the sync hangs up on a regular basis. This should have been fixed years ago. I have been using Quicken for 30 years and this function has never worked reliably. I was hoping when Quicken switched to a subscription model they would put more effort in making the software work. If they can't fix the sync problems, they should at least backup receipts entered to the cloud in a separate file. That way if you are forced to reset the data, the info entered to the cloud is not lost.

In answer to the questions above: I have a clean file with no errors and I don't use a VPN.

Quicken Kristina

Hello Neecie,

To help troubleshoot this issue, please provide more information. Do you recall when this specific issue with sync hanging started? Do you keep your Quicken file directly on your local hard drive? Is your file synced with any cloud services, such as OneDrive, iCloud, or Dropbox?

If you haven't done so already, please try validating and/or super validating your data file.  Please save a backup file prior to performing these steps.

Validate: 

1. File
2. Validate and Repair File...
3. Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log
6. Close Quicken (leave it closed for at least 5 secs)
7. 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:

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

Thank you!

Neecie

Hi, Kristina,

Thanks for your answer. I appreciate the prompt reply. Unfortunately, I have already tried everything you suggested (both the validate and super validate). This is why I said my data file is error free—at least that is what Quicken says.

I had contacted tech support about this problem. The person I chatted with suggested that I needed to sync more often for it to work. So I decided to test this by categorizing a downloaded receipt and then immediately syncing. It worked fine for two receipts, syncing in just a few seconds. The third time it failed and I had to reset the data file again. By the way, I never have a problem syncing as long as I am only entering data on the desktop version. This means the mobile app is only useful as a way of looking at my accounts. If I try to enter anything on either my iPhone or iPad, it will corrupt the mobile data.

Also, although I have been using Quicken for decades, I only keep a few years data in my file and archive the rest.

I am a bit frustrated with the Quicken software because I have had to turn off a lot of features because they don't work. I am hopeful that these issues are being worked on, but it is disheartening when I look up an issue I am having and find posts about the exact problem dated several years ago.

In any case, I do appreciate you trying to help.

rjbaumgart

Has anyone found a resolution to these errors?