Quicken Mac 7.10 – Can't open file - Due to lack of space

Len Meyer

I have tried to sanitize my file, but once the file is "copied" and it starts to "sanitize", the application stops responding. I never get the sanitized zip file. I have to force quit Quicken to stop it. Once I open the app again, I can load my "sanitized" file, but all the account names are there and nothing appears "sanitized". I am still on 7.9.1 on Mac OS 15.1 which is working okay for now (aside from what I just mentioned) but would still like to upgrade when ready.

Jon

You never see the sanitized file. Once the process is complete it uploads to Quicken automatically; your data file doesn't change at all.

Len Meyer

Jon, I get more or less the same result. It tries to create the sanitized file, but the app shows non-responsive right clicking in the dock, and I get the spinning beach ball. Is this normal? How long should it take to "sanitize" the file?

Jon

I think the last time I did that it took several minutes, but that was on a pretty fast Mac. I wouldn't expect to be able to do anything with the app while it's processing or uploading. It also depends on the file size - the bigger the file the longer it takes.

Len Meyer

Nevermind - that worked - just took a LONG time to convert to "sanitized". Should be on its way to Jacobs and team at Quicken.

jacobs

Should be on its way to Jacobs and team at Quicken.

@Len Meyer Just to be clear, I'm a fellow Quicken user who is active in this forum, but I'm not part of the team at Quicken. 😀

Len Meyer

@jacobs - ha, sorry, got the wrong end of the thread. ;)

timmer59

Kristina: Nope I haven't been getting back into the file; I've had to restore to a previous backup to get up and running again. That works for a little while, but now for the third time, I find I can't open it when restarting Quicken. After I enter my password for the file, it just redirects to the "Let's Get Started" dialog.

This has all been happening since updating to 7.10, so maybe I'll try going back to 7.9 for now.

timmer59

Also, this is obvious to state no doubt, but the sanitized file I sent in is not the corrupted file, because of course I couldn't open it to run that process. What I sent is the file restored from a recent backup.

jacobs

It may be unrelated, but one of the Quicken Mac programmers has posted in a different thread about an issue they are aware of and trying to diagnose which occurs with a small percentage of users who encrypt their Quicken data files. It would be interesting to know if those who have reported the problem in this thread with Quicken not being able to open their file have their file encrypted? And if so, does the problem go away if you disable encryption of the data file?

You can read the post I'm referring to from Quicken_ChrisC here:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20461125#Comment_20461125

It may be that these are separate issues; I just posted it because I've been following both threads and thought they might be related.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @Len Meyer,

The team working on this issue took a look at the sanitized file you provided. They said that the process of sanitizing the file also removes the password protection, and with that password protection removed, the file opened without issue.

What they recommend is that you revert your Quicken for Mac to version 7.9.1, then open a pre-conversion version of your file (a backup from before your Quicken upgraded to 7.10), remove the password (go to Quicken>Settings>Security, click Remove Password, then input your password in order to remove it), then upgrade your Quicken to the latest version. That should allow you to open your file without issue.

You can use this article to roll back to version 7.9.1:

https://www.quicken.com/support/reinstalling-and-patching-your-quicken-subscription-version-after-your-membership-has-0/

Please let me know how it goes!

QuickT

I updated to Quicken 7.10.1 only to find something has broken in the file compression on closing the Quicken program. In prior versions the size of the file is reduced to about 50% of its size on disk. Now it only reduces the size by about 3%! Why? Did something in the database upgrade or file upgrade cause this issue? Is this root cause of some of the file opening issues people are reporting?

jacobs

@QuickT Certainly nothing changed between verison 7.10.0 and 7.10.1; I don't think anything related to file saving changed from version 7.9, either.

Could you be specific about what file compression you're talking about. The auto-generated backups? File encryption? Is your live data file is local on your hard drive (not on iCloud or Dropbox)?

Jon

I can confirm what @QuickT is seeing, I'm seeing it too. I hadn't looked at my Quicken data files recently but I can see that right now the file when open is 191.7MB and when closed is 188.5 MB. I'm going to check my Time Machine backups to see if I can find when exactly things changed, but I can say the last time I saved the file on my laptop on November 3 using the 7.10.0 beta it was only 57.4MB. So something in either the 7.10.0 release or 7.10.1 release stopped compressing the file (it still seems to be encrypted, when closed the package contents are just the catalog and data files plus the locks folder).

Jon

OK, I'm not sure what's going on but it doesn't seem tied to me upgrading to a new version of Quicken. I upgraded from 7.10.0 to 7.10.1 on my desktop Mac sometime between 11-5 and 11-8, but my Quicken file did not jump in size until sometime between the afternoon of the 12th (when it was 57MB) and the afternoon of the 13th (when it was 191MB). Edit: whoops, it looks like the 11-13 file was open while it was being backed up. The mid-afternoon backup on the 14th was back down to 57MB, and mid-afternoon on the 15th it was up to 188MB. So whatever happened it was later in the day on the 14th or sometime before mid-afternoon on the 15th.

And I upgraded to Mac OS 15.1 back on the 4th, so it doesn't seem tied to that either.

QuickT

@jacobs When you view the Quicken file size on disk before opening the program/file it shows it as xx/MB file stored (command-I). When the program opens it, you will see it is uncompressed and shows on file as xx/MB. When you quit the program it goes back to xx/MB file stored (compressed). This is what you transfer if you do your own backup from local store to iCloud for example (as I do). Since this last upgrade my file on store / transfer was around 50+ MB. Now it is 188+MB as @Jon is also confirming. It seems to be correlated to the 7.10.1 update as my file times in the backup and on disk store cross that boundary. Weird thing is that the disk sizes reported from @Jon almost mirror my file size (188.3MB closed and 194.9 MB open) - 70MB closed in version 7.10.0, and to my knowledge I have not taken any OS updates or changes since. Only difference is Quicken release.

@Jon If you are backing up using Time Machine, then you will see different file size backups as I do depending on when the backup occurred and if the file was open in Quicken or not at the time, hence it is not a definitive way to say what is happening at a point in time. I also have TM backup and see the differences across days/hours. But the proof of the situation is when you do specific point in time backups (after close of file) and see the difference that compression is not happening anymore.

Is it possible that since Quicken have introduced the cloud backup recently that they are doing something with the file management that has affected the file size compression etc. Why would this have dramatically changed from multiple prior versions?

Jon

@QuickT With encrypted data files the internal file structure is different when it's open than when it's closed. That's how I knew the file was open during the backup on the 13th - I restored the file from backup & checked the package contents. Here's the contents when closed:

and when open:

jacobs

I don't know if this could be related or not, but one of the Quicken Mac developers has been looking into a problem a small number of users are having with encrypted files (which I linked in my prior post). It's possible that in version 7.10.1 he tried changing a setting in the macOS encryption command to remove the compression (temporarily) in order to see if it was related to the problem. Just a guess…

(I do not think it has anything to do with the new online backup service. Backup and live file encryption should be two different things. I don't have the online backup service now, but I did beta test it earlier this year, and my backup file sizes were consistent with my local backup files sizes, and less than half the size of my live data file.)