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Updating is suddenly creating placeholder entries for stocks I have not owned for over 10 years

Vinndalf

Steps: Click Update Now. Wait for online sync to finish.
Result: one account now has three placeholder entries asking me to enter costs for stocks I have not owned in over a decade. The placeholders are all dated 2014.

I have been using Quicken for a long time. I've updated this account (and others) online over and over for years and never seen this.

I tried moving to a recent backup and resyncing. Same result: syncing created the same three placeholders.

The financial institution, if that's relevant, is Schwab. I have other Schwab accounts that are not exhibiting this behavior.

If I simply delete the placeholders then Quicken's portfolio says I have a negative number of shares for each security.

What gives, and how do I recover?

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Investments

Windows

One Step Update

Comments

Vinndalf

I'm using Quicken Classic on my Windows 11 desktop.

Quicken Anja

Hello @Vinndalf,

We appreciate you bringing this issue to our attention, that certainly sounds frustrating!

When did you first notice this issue began? Was there anything significant that happened before this issue started (e.g.: installed new update release, etc.)? Does this only occur when using Update Now from within the account register or also when you run a One Step Update for all accounts?

Additionally, could you please tell us where your data file is located on your computer? Do you have it saved in a folder located on your local hard drive (C: Drive), or in a cloud-based/external drive (e.g.: OneDrive, DropBox, USB, etc.)?

Last, it may also be helpful if you could provide a screenshot. If needed, please refer to this Community FAQ for instructions on how to attach a screenshot. Alternatively, you can also drag and drop screenshots to your response if you are not given the option to add attachments.

Thank you!

q_lurker

The significant oddity to me is that you say "The placeholders are all dated 2014."

A placeholder gets created (offered) when Quicken detects a difference between its share count in your file and what the FI (Schwab) reports for a specific date. The current Schwab download information should not be reporting share holdings for a 2014 date.

Once again, restoring your backup, I suggest you:

Go to Edit / Preferences - Investments. Make sure the 'Show hidden transactions' option is checked.
Confirm that the account and those securities are properly presented and no placeholders exist.
Go to File / Validate and Repair File. Validate the file. I'd probably include the Rebuild investing lots option also, but not the Correct investing price history.
Print (to paper or a pdf file) the transaction history in the account for these three securities.
Now you can do the Update Now for the account.
If the placeholders do reappear, post a screenshot here.
You should then be in a position to delete the placeholder and re-enter the (apparently) deleted transactions.

Vinndalf

Thank you @Quicken Anja and @q_lurker. Here are answers to your questions:

Nothing has recently changed on my side that I know of. I am running version R60.20. I guess I don't recall when that Quicken update occurred. Perhaps that was recent?
The problem arises consistently after either One-Step Update (for all accounts) or Update Now from the register.
My data file is in the Quicken folder under Documents on my local hard drive. It is not in cloud-based storage.

I followed q_lurker's steps. After file validation the transaction history and portfolio holdings still looked correct. An update once again produced three new placeholder transactions for 2014. Here is a screenshot:

Vinndalf

This is a bit embarrassing. It turns out that syncing did not cause those placeholders to appear. They were there before—the are in my backup file, from before syncing—I just hadn't noticed them for some reason. Not sure why they came to my attention now, but those problematic entries were not created by syncing. I opened a backup file that was several months old, and they were already there.

I don't know how long they've been there, and their origin is obscure to me, but it may not be a Quicken programming problem. Thanks for your efforts, and apologies for the erroneous error report. Evidently I've been living with them for a while, so I'll just go on doing that.

q_lurker

The best I can offer is that you have been living with this from 4/9/2014 - less than a decade.

For many years, placeholders by default could be considered hidden transactions and the preference setting to show hidden transactions was required to 'see' them. Only more recently was the Placeholders tab introduced where you are now seeing them.