This is mostly an observation and alert to others. I had some Merrill Edge brokerage accounts using "Tracking Method" = "Complete - Positions and Transactions" for many years and successfully downloading transactions via Express Web Connect. Sometime in the last 3-ish months, those brokerage accounts silently got converted to Tracking Method = "Simple - Positions Only" without any notification/prompting.
I discovered the issue today, and the only way to convert the accounts back to Complete tracking was to deactivate the online services (as the Complete Tracking selection was grayed out). I'm rather annoyed that the accounts were automatically converted from Complete tracking to Simple tracking without any sort of warning whatsoever. The hover pop-up explanation for the conversion is because Merrill Edge Express Web Connect no longer supports Complete tracking, only Simple tracking.
However, by "deactivate"-ing the online service, deleting the "Financial Institution" and "Account Number" from the account details page, and then re-connecting I was able to switch the account back to Complete tracking and download transactions again.
[Edited - Readability]
