Missing Files

Festus500

This matter was closed before being resolved. Starting today I am experiencing same problem as several other people. [Removed - Speculation/Inaccurate/Disruptive] In my case, today, the Folder and File are gone, not in Trash, not in my Dropbox Back up and not in my Time Machine Backup. Funny thing is I can access file on the cloud via my phone or computer using Quicken Classic. Also kind of sad there is no tech support on weekend.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7937570/missing-files

[Edited for Readability]

NotACPA

You CAN'T "turn it back on". You can only start a new discussion on the same topic and reference the prior topic.

I've changed the name of this thread to accurately reflect your issue.

jacobs

I elected weekly back ups bc I travel a lot and often use the computer in environments where having it connected to an external device via a cable is a risk of breaking the connector.

Got it and understood.

But just FYI… you can leave Time Machine set to its hourly default, or daily, and only connect the external drive when it's convenient. Time Machine will see the drive is not present and it will save an internal snapshot but won't balk because the external drive is missing; whenever you connect the external drive, it willl then complete its backup. I travel a bit with my Apple laptops, and I have always had them set to the hourly Time Machine default; when I'm away from home, it simply doesn't back up. there's no need to change any setting. After a while (7 days? 10 days?), it will pop up a warning notice that it hasn't been backed up for 'x' days, but that's it. I was just away for four days, and Time Machine obviously couldn't run; as soon as I got home, Time Machine did its thing. (I have a desktop iMac at home with the external drive connected; the laptop connects to the Time Machine drive on the iMac, so I'm never connecting and disconnecting a cord.)

NotACPA

You CAN'T "turn it back on". You can only start a new discussion on the same topic and reference the prior topic.

I've changed the name of this thread to accurately reflect your issue.

Festus500

thanks. I’m incredulous that files AND directory/folder on laptop, drop box, external backup are gone yet I can still access data on cloud. However I have not verified online copy is accurate

jacobs

@Festus500 I'm confused by a few things in your posts, so perhaps you could clarify…

You said you "can access file on the cloud via my phone or computer using Quicken Classic." There's actually a lot to unpack in that simple statement. Quicken Classic is the software which runs on your Mac. It does not/can not run on your phone. Quicken has a companion mobile app which can access data stored in Quicken Cloud which has been synced from your desktop data file. That mobile app cannot be run from your computer. So it's not clear what is and isn't happening.

Also, when you refer to "the cloud", could you clarify if you mean Quicken Cloud, the storage used for a subset of your data to work with the Quicken mobile app, or if you mean Apple's iCloud, or if you mean Dropbox — all of which are storing data "in the cloud".

Do you have your Quicken Classic data file — the live file you use, not backups — stored on Dropbox or iCloud? If so, that could be a source of whatever happened, as the only safe and supported place for a live Quicken data file is on your local computer.

You refer to an external backup. Is this using Time Machine, or some other form of external backup. Even if a folder/file was somehow deleted from your computer, it wouldn't have disappeared from your Time Machine backup.

Finally, even if you can access your data via the mobile app, until you get your local data file back in place, you have no path forward. You cannot use the mobile (Quicken Cloud) data to create/restore a local Quicken Classic data file. So it's important to get to the bottom of what is missing or you're going to be stuck going forward.

Festus500

Jacob, thanks for taking the time to point out ambiguity/in-accurate items. I will attempt to remedy but have additional digging to do.

1. We are using three versions of Quicken Classic (they are all labeled Classic and I have the Premier subscription):
   1. 1 Desktop Version with quicken file saved to Mac's HD (backed up three ways: real-time Dropbox, weekly via TimeMachine pushing data to External HD, and each time I close the file on Mac it autosaves to HD (which is also saved to Dropbox and Time Machine.
   2. Two people accessing our file using Web portal - it is my understanding that is saved to where ever the web version keeps it file
   3. One person accessing our file using Mobile App - I assume this is accessing the same data as Web version
2. My reference to "cloud" was vague. I meant two things: 1) data stored on my Mac that is saved to DropBox on Cloud; 2) Knowing when my Mac is off or off internet I can still use Web and Mobile versions. I know the changes made on Web and Mobile populate the Desktop once Mac is turned on and sync'd
3. The Mac datafile was stored in a quicken data folder on my HD since Feb 2024. Yesterday after updating Quicken executable, the file could not be found, but was on the list of recently opened files. Before getting Jacob's suggestions, I determine that 25 October was last time I successfully opened/used the file on my Mac (I now know that bc I found and restored the my data from an automatic backup saved elsewhere on my HD). That said I can't find the File or Folder on last Time Machine back up last week or on DropBox archive. I find it concerning that an entire folder and its contents would disappear without a trace (could have been hidden by OS). I need to go back to Time Machine before 25 October (and earlier) to see if file was backed up.
4. Agree it is important to get to bottom of this. It is possible that I and several others are root cause of this problem, but it is also possible that there is an undocumented feature causing this. It would be absolutely horrible if I had to reconstitute some very complex financial chart of accounts and transactions back over a decade. For those reading this make sure you have a back up and know how to do a recovery.

Jacob - thanks again for your help. I may have to send you a Holiday basket

jacobs

@Festus500 Thanks for your detailed reply.

I would focus on this: "I can't find the File or Folder on last Time Machine back up last week or on DropBox archive. I find it concerning that an entire folder and its contents would disappear without a trace."

I don't believe there's anything Quicken can do to delete a file and folder as you're describing. But there is certainly nothing Quicken can do to change what was previously backed up in Time Machine. Even macOS can't change past snapshots in Time Machine. So there's still something odd which hasn't been uncovered yet. For the Mac and Dropbox, I'd suspect the folder somehow go renamed and/or moved. But that wouldn't explain the file/folder disappearing from prior Time Machine snapshots.

Trying to find hidden folders in Time Machine can be tricky, because you typically navigate to the location where a file or folder exists now, then Enter Time Machine, and see what was there in the past. But if the location doesn't exist currently, how do you navigate there in Time Machine if it's a hidden location.

So let's come back to the folder location: was it previously in Quicken's default location: inside your User folder, in the hidden Library folder, in the Application Support folder? Or did you have it in a different location?

If you were using th default location, try this. Navigate to the Application Support folder: in the Finder, hold down the option key and select Library from the "Go" menu; then open Application Support. Scroll down to "Q" and verify what you're reporting: that there is no Quicken folder currently here. Now select Browse Time Machine Backups from the Time Machine menu. This will open Time Machine showing the Application Support folder. Now start step back in time to roughly a month ago in the time Machine interface, and see if the Quicken folder is there. If so, advance slowly forward in time until it disappears; then select the last snapshot just prior to it disappearing, click on the Quicken folder, and click Restore.

(By the way, your Time Machine backups are not just weekly, unless this is an external drive you only connect to once a week. If it's an external drive always connected to the Mac, Time Machine creates backups every hour. It keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, keeps daily backups for the past month, and keeps weekly backups for all previous months until it needs to remove the oldest ones once the disk becomes full. So if you're looking for something which has changes within the past month, you should be able to access snapshots from every day in the past month.)

Jon

@jacobs In Time Machine settings you can set the frequency of backups to be hourly, daily or weekly. So it's entirely possible that @Festus500 has chosen weekly backups. I agree with the rest of your post, though - there's nothing Quicken can do to remove a file from a Time Machine backup, so something else is going on. When I checked just now, the default location for Quicken data files inside the Library folder was being included in my Time Machine backups.

jacobs

@Jon You're right; I guess I had entirely missed that Apple added the option to set the Time Machine frequency as of macOS Ventura (macOS 13). I've been using Time Machine for many, many years, and it was never user-adjustable in the past.

That said, I can't think of a good reason for selecting a frequency less than daily. Time Machine is there to bail you out of unplanned/unexpected problems, so why not have it back up at least daily; it self-manages deleting those daily backups after a month and retaining only weekly backups further in the past.

Festus500

@jacobs and @Jon (I hope I hit right Jon with smiley emoji - there are several). Thanks for providing great insight that I plan to investigate further. First I agree 110% that there is no way Quicken can change what is archived in Time Machine. I also see that before file went AWOL, Quicken was making auto back-ups (thankfully) which meant on those dates I was able to access that data. It is possible that DropBox or iOS deleted the file and folder, but I will do more digging.

Note 1 - I moved the data file from default location to another folder such that I could focus my DropBox and Time Machine back up to the data most important to me rather than my entire HD.

Note 2 - I elected weekly back ups bc I travel a lot and often use the computer in environments where having it connected to an external device via a cable is a risk of breaking the connector. I also know my data is also being constantly being updated on dropbox when I'm connected to internet. Obviously I need to reassess my risks, but first I'm going to find out what happened to my file. Like they say Take Aircraft Control, Analyze Situation and Take Appropriate action.

Thanks again for contributing to this discussion

jacobs

I elected weekly back ups bc I travel a lot and often use the computer in environments where having it connected to an external device via a cable is a risk of breaking the connector.

Got it and understood.

But just FYI… you can leave Time Machine set to its hourly default, or daily, and only connect the external drive when it's convenient. Time Machine will see the drive is not present and it will save an internal snapshot but won't balk because the external drive is missing; whenever you connect the external drive, it willl then complete its backup. I travel a bit with my Apple laptops, and I have always had them set to the hourly Time Machine default; when I'm away from home, it simply doesn't back up. there's no need to change any setting. After a while (7 days? 10 days?), it will pop up a warning notice that it hasn't been backed up for 'x' days, but that's it. I was just away for four days, and Time Machine obviously couldn't run; as soon as I got home, Time Machine did its thing. (I have a desktop iMac at home with the external drive connected; the laptop connects to the Time Machine drive on the iMac, so I'm never connecting and disconnecting a cord.)

dan.greenberg.ct

Sorry if this is a repeat of what you already answered, but what is the exact path of your main data file on your Mac (File\Show 'filename' in Finder) and what is the exact path of your backups (File\Show Backups in Finder)? It sounds like you have been changing those over time, correct? If so, do you recall how you did that?