How do I delete a bad record in Quicken that keeps coming back with Validate?

michael7572

Created a new datafile with existing records. There were a lot of data block errors in the existing.
Found numerous discrepancies, etc. due to the bad data file and corrected all but one.
In one (not online) account there was a bad record: 5/16/2018 "Pam Sherwood" "1018143313660" The category showed as -SPLIT and will not accept any changes. I moved all records out to a new account but left that one in. I deleted it.

Ran Validate & Repair. The bad record came back. I deleted the record AND the now all but empty except for this one bad record account.

Ran Validate & Repair. The bad record comes back, but since it has no "account" Quicken is creating account ACCT_11e03. All I can do is deleted it and then it comes back with a validate.

It's also creating a category ACCT_22e04 with a date of 0/0/1900 but with nothing in it. It appears to be connected to this bad record. This started after I deleted that one account and left this bad record "homeless."

Supervalidate doesn't fix this issue either.

Since this bad record copied over to my new datafile, creating yet another new datafile, which is a real pain because of the validations (the accounts dropped off about 3 times each before stabilizing) would do the same.

I deleted all references to both date and name of this file in Quicken, yet it comes back from somewhere.

Tom Young

I'm not sure what's happening here but if that transaction is now isolated in the ACCT_11e03 I'd think that you could hide that Account, delete the new Category, and carry on from there.

It seems Quicken creates those odd-ball Accounts as temporary Accounts in the process of downloading but then deletes them after the download, or maybe after accepting the transactions into their Accounts.

Was that "Pam Sherwood" transaction an actual transaction of some sort, maybe one that took place when the old Account WAS downloading?

michael7572

It was an actual entry back in 2018, but the data file was corrupted and I got data block errors when validating. I made a new datafile and retained the entries. Lots of errors, especially with splits, but i fixed them, except for this one. The record seems embedded in some other entry.

When I hid the account with the bad record and ran validate it created another account with that same bad file.

RalphC

Deleting an account was probably not a good idea. Either contact Quicken Support and maybe they can dig into the data file to remedy the corruption. Or, just try to retrieve a non-corrupted data file. Copy the current half of the file to a new file. Does the corruption still exist? If not, go back a little further in time to find the point where you retain the most data but get rid of the corruption. If the corruption does exist, go forward in time until you get a clean file.

michael7572

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20491057#Comment_20491057

I renamed the fictitious ACCT to what the original account name was, and Quicken accepted it. It no longer creates a fictitious account, but it's still creating the fictitious category because of the afore mentioned issue. Quicken won't accept any category correction, yet that's what the error message wants.
I tried voiding the rogue invoice but all that happened was Quicken created another one in the same folder that's not void, and has the same category issue.
From my experience, Quicken Support does not have the ability (perhaps nobody has based on how Quicken is built?) to dig into a data file. Either Validate, SuperValidate, make a new copy (which I did, but it brought the rogue account with it) or start over, which is NOT an option since my records go back to the early 1990s when Quicken was a DOS program.

CaliQkn

@michael7572 - If you haven't already, you can try creating a new account and moving all transactions except the "rogue" one to the new account.

1. Make a backup of your data file before and during this process, just in case you need to go back.
2. Create a full transaction report for the account. Export it to Excel, if possible.
3. Rename the account to something identifiable.
4. Deactivate online services for the account.
5. Create a new offline account
6. Delete the Opening Balance transaction in the new offline account.
7. Move all transactions, except the "rogue" one, from the old to the new offline account.
8. If you get any prompts, just click "OK".
9. Use the report created in step #2 to reconcile, and troubleshoot the new account if necessary.
10. Reactivate the new account with online services.
11. Delete the old empty account.

Not sure this will work, but the key is to be able to copy all transactions except the one causing issues.

michael7572

I already did this but the difference is the account was not an online account. It was merely a tracker for the entries and if payment was required it would link to the account that took care of the payment.

The new account that I created with the records, excluding the bad record, are fine. Again, not an online account so there's no activity unless I add something manually.

The bad record is linked to "something," and if I delete it it just comes back.

CaliQkn

@michael7572 data block errors usually indicate bad sectors on a hard or SSD drive, or database corruption. I suspect that the record or transaction is inaccessible due to corruption.

If that bad record is not causing any issues, then I would just keep it as-is. Trying fix it at this point might just make things worse.

Also, there are ways to recreate your data file using QIF or QXF files, but it's not perfect and a lot of manual work and clean up may be required. The amount of work required may not make it feasible.

michael7572

Making a complete copy was what I did. I know there are problems with the actual data, especially with reminders that have split entries. I've been deleting them and re-creating. My hope is that, since this problem involves a bad split, that at some point deleting one will fix this problem.

I'm trying not to just leave it because in my experience it can make other problems snowball.