Debugging Dropped Express Web Connect+ Transactions

malinger

I have a new, high-end Windows 11 with a fresh OS install. I have the new Quicken Classic DELUXE R60.20 Build 27.1.60.20 with a new Quicken account. I have one checking account and three credit accounts at my financial institution (FI).

When I initially add the four accounts to Quicken via EWC+, it downloads about a month of data, no transactions are missing, and all accounts balance. I wait a few days and incrementally download more transactions; all is well. After about a week, Quicken+FI starts dropping transactions. The OFX log seems to only contain one account instead of all four, so it is inconclusive.

Upon seeing the missing transactions, I can purge those four accounts from Quicken and re-add them. The initial download from the re-added accounts contain ALL the transactions and the accounts balance. This behavior leads me to believe that the problem is on the Quicken side.

How do I debug this issue without sharing my screen or my financial records? Is there a way to inspect the query and the returned results in the logs? I suspect that the OFX log only contains the last account accessed; unfortunately, that isn't the account with the missing transactions.

Is there a way to skip over the level-1 diagnosis where a phone operator reads a pre-canned script and tells me to reinstall the software? Is there a way to skip the level-2 diagnosis with the super users? May I speak with a software engineer?

q_lurker

I may be wrong, but I suspect to find transaction data sent via EWC+ you should be examining the Cloud Synch Log rather than the OFX Log.

malinger

@q_lurker Yes, I see JSON with each SEND and RECV. That should work to debug the issue. Now, I just have to wait for a week to see if I get dropped transactions. We should leave this thread open for a couple of weeks.

mshiggins

What sort of transactions are getting dropped? Transactions for repeat amounts like a daily Starbucks purchase?

Are you having the transactions be automatically added to your account registers or are you using the Downloaded Transactions tab to review transactions before accepting them into the account register?

malinger

I started over one week ago by purging my four accounts (1 checking, 3 credit card). I did an incremental update today (Express Web Connect+). All is well. My version didn't change (R60.20 build 27.1.60.20). I don't currently see the problem repeating. Unfortunately, these are real bank accounts, so I don't get frequent updates. I just don't have that many transactions. My refresh cycle is 7 days.

Before I purged my accounts, I had two different credit card accounts each drop 1 transaction from the same vendor. They were different amounts though. The other dropped transaction was a transfer from my checking to one of my credit cards. I pay all three credit cards off weekly by transferring from checking to each card. Quicken picked up two of these and dropped the third one.

My son also has Quicken with the same bank. He didn't know that Quicken drops transactions, so he used it for a year before cross checking with the bank. He was off by $2000. That must have been a lot of dropped transactions.

My transactions are automatically added to my account registers.

I guess that I have to save out the logs and wait another week to see if it happens again.

mshiggins

You might want to switch to using the Downloaded Transactions tab to review your downloaded transactions. Assuming you don’t manually enter any transactions, all the downloaded transactions should show a status of New in the Downloaded Transactions tab. If any transactions show as Match, right click and select Make New. Once all transactions show as New, Accept all.

Boatnmaniac

@malinger - Check to see if you have Pending Transactions enabled to be shown in the account register. If so, Pending Transactions should get deleted by Quicken when the posted transactions later download from the financial institution. So maybe those are the transactions that are getting deleted the next time you download and the corresponding posted transactions download?

There are also a few other things to be aware of when Pending Transactions are enabled:

1. Pending transactions will sometimes have a different amount than the corresponding downloaded posted transactions will have. This happens most commonly with credit and debit card charges with restaurants because they will initially ring up the charge for the actual amount of the bill but later it will be rung up again with the tip included. It also sometimes happens with gas purchased at the pump…a small initial purchase to verify the card is valid and then the full amount of the gas purchase once the vehicle is filled up. It can also happen with other types of charges, especially with online purchases, but not as frequently.
2. Pending Transactions can be set up to be shown in the account register. But sometimes these pending transactions don't always delete when the posted transaction later downloads, creating what appears to be duplicate transactions. When this happens the Pending Transaction needs to be manually deleted.
3. An option for Pending Transactions that are shown in the register is for the dollar amount to be included in the account register current and ending balances. When this is done and the Pending Transaction is not deleted when the posted transaction downloads, it will throw off the account register current and ending balances. When this happens, manually delete the Pending Transaction to resolve the account balance issue.

If you have Pending Transactions enabled you might want to consider disabling that feature to see if the issue you are seeing goes away. To do this go to Edit > Preferences > Pending Transactions > OFF > OK.

If you do not want to turn off Pending Transactions entirely you can limit it so that the transactions are not added to the account register but are only shown beneath the register on the Pending Transactions tab. To limit them to the Pending Transactions tab beneath the account register go to Edit > Preferences > Pending Transactions > Account Settings > uncheck the accounts boxes > OK.

Because of these Pending Transaction issues I now only enable them to be shown on the Pending Transactions tab beneath the account register. I do like seeing them there so I can get an early view of what transactions will soon be posting but they will have absolutely no impact on my account registers and balances. Before I restricted it like this it was a constant chore troubleshooting to find out why I was having account register balance issues. That no longer happens.

malinger

@Boatnmaniac I don't have "Pending transactions" turned on.

malinger

@mshiggins I turned off the "automatically add transactions" feature. It does seem like Quicken has some sort of duplicate filter logic in it that causes it to drop real transactions. This could be the issue.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20472031#Comment_20472031

Have you ever had Pending Transactions enabled?