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problems with attachments

Unknown Member
edited September 2018 in
I've been able to routinely and quite successfully attach documents to quicken 2011 entries.  Now, however, and without explanation, I get a dialog box entitled file download box which asks whether I want to open, save or cancel the file, open doesn't actually open it, and the file doesn't attach.  What's interesting about this is that the file location on the bottom of the dialog box is an appdata/local/ temp file and NOT the file chosen for attachment.  I thought this might be an issue with the PDF viewer, so I switched from the Nuance PDF viewer to the more common Adobe Reader PDF viewer (version X) but the problem persists.  There have been no system changes which would cause this, or any other, behavior.

Any thoughts?

barry

Comments

  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    to add to the above question, I have never had a dialog box asking me to open, save or cancel a file; historically, when attaching receipts to particular transactions, once you navigate to the specific location in your c drive where the receipt can be found, just clicking on the file makes it show up  as a copy of the receipt.  You click on done, and that's it.  Now I'm being asked to open a file, and when I do that, I don't visually see the receipt and the alleged attachment will not open.

    barry
  • UKRUKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2018
    First of all, since you're running Quicken 2011 ... are you running the latest available fix / release level, "R8"? (See Help / About Quicken). If not, please do upgrade to R8: http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/using-quicken/patches-and-updates/7981.html

    Has Quicken ever unexpectedly closed on you before this started happening (or did Windows or your PC crash while Quicken was running)?
    I'd recommend you validate your Quicken data file to see, if there's a problem with data corruption. Let's eliminate that possibility. Click File / File Operations / Validate ...
    Let that run and see if any errors are noted. Fix anything that gets reported.
    Finally, try working with attachments again and see if the problem is resolved.
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    First of all, since you're running Quicken 2011 ... are you running the latest available fix / release level, "R8"? (See Help / About Quicken). If not, please do upgrade to R8: http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/using-quicken/patches-and-updates/7981.html

    Has Quicken ever unexpectedly closed on you before this started happening (or did Windows or your PC crash while Quicken was running)?
    I'd recommend you validate your Quicken data file to see, if there's a problem with data corruption. Let's eliminate that possibility. Click File / File Operations / Validate ...
    Let that run and see if any errors are noted. Fix anything that gets reported.
    Finally, try working with attachments again and see if the problem is resolved.

    I'm not sure how to reply to ukr's suggestions, which I much appreciate; I find the quicken community website very nonintuitive--there is no obvious (at least to me) way to reply.  In any event, I do have (I doubled checked) the most current release of Quicken 2011 and validation returns a valid response (I didn't know there was such a thing so thank you for that suggestion).  I have had no instances of quicken crashing.  Rebooting doesn't change anything.  I get what purports to be an attachment in the upper left corner (with, for example, the legend "other" but I get the same result when I use receipt/bill, other or check) but clicking on it produces nothing.  Suggestions?

    barry
  • UKRUKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2018
    Hi Barry,
    respond to someone's answer or comments... that is done by submitting a comment or answer ... yes, that function could probably stand some improvement ...

    As to what to do next to resolve your issue ...
    There have been instances where Quicken processes malfunctioned because of interference by the Antivirus software which, quietly and without displaying any messages, disallowed a function.
    So, how about trying this: Temporarily disable your Antivirus software, then try working with attachments again. If that makes the process work again, you need to dig into your AV software and see if there are any event log files that indicate an AV - disallowed action. You would then have to figure out how to tell AV to allow this action in Quicken without interference. Perhaps a call to AV support or an AV software update is required to resolve that.

    If it isn't AV throwing a monkey wrench, then the only other suggestion I can give you is to completely remove Quicken from your system using this process http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/getting-started/installation/4108.html
    and reinstall Quicken inculding all the fix release updates, http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/getting-started/installation/1686.html (following the "Reinstall Q..." instructions for your version of Windows.)
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Hi Barry,
    respond to someone's answer or comments... that is done by submitting a comment or answer ... yes, that function could probably stand some improvement ...

    As to what to do next to resolve your issue ...
    There have been instances where Quicken processes malfunctioned because of interference by the Antivirus software which, quietly and without displaying any messages, disallowed a function.
    So, how about trying this: Temporarily disable your Antivirus software, then try working with attachments again. If that makes the process work again, you need to dig into your AV software and see if there are any event log files that indicate an AV - disallowed action. You would then have to figure out how to tell AV to allow this action in Quicken without interference. Perhaps a call to AV support or an AV software update is required to resolve that.

    If it isn't AV throwing a monkey wrench, then the only other suggestion I can give you is to completely remove Quicken from your system using this process http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/getting-started/installation/4108.html
    and reinstall Quicken inculding all the fix release updates, http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/getting-started/installation/1686.html (following the "Reinstall Q..." instructions for your version of Windows.)

    Thanks for the clear and easy to understand instructions.  Regrettably neither the antivirus suggestion nor the reinstallation of Quicken fixed the problem.  The transactions attachment window shows "other" as a file attachment but clicking on it does nothing.  When you go to the item entry in the register, under the date you find, in order, a plus sign, a pencil icon, and another plus sign.  Using "receipt/bill" produces the same results (with an attachment indicated as "receipt/bill" of course instead of other).  Attempting attachments with other entries produces the same results.  (Note:  I followed the instructions to the letter in the uninstallation and installation process including using the cleaning tool and deleting the appropriate files).

    I have no idea how to fix this problem and no explanation why it's occuring; there have been no system changes (that I can think of) that have occurred between the last time the attachment function worked (probably two weeks ago) and now.

    Suggestions?

    barry
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Hi Barry,
    respond to someone's answer or comments... that is done by submitting a comment or answer ... yes, that function could probably stand some improvement ...

    As to what to do next to resolve your issue ...
    There have been instances where Quicken processes malfunctioned because of interference by the Antivirus software which, quietly and without displaying any messages, disallowed a function.
    So, how about trying this: Temporarily disable your Antivirus software, then try working with attachments again. If that makes the process work again, you need to dig into your AV software and see if there are any event log files that indicate an AV - disallowed action. You would then have to figure out how to tell AV to allow this action in Quicken without interference. Perhaps a call to AV support or an AV software update is required to resolve that.

    If it isn't AV throwing a monkey wrench, then the only other suggestion I can give you is to completely remove Quicken from your system using this process http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/getting-started/installation/4108.html
    and reinstall Quicken inculding all the fix release updates, http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/getting-started/installation/1686.html (following the "Reinstall Q..." instructions for your version of Windows.)

    Forget the "plus" sign reference; I'm a little slow--that's always there when you browse over it.  Tells you that you can attach etc.  But the problem remains.

    barry
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Hi Barry,
    respond to someone's answer or comments... that is done by submitting a comment or answer ... yes, that function could probably stand some improvement ...

    As to what to do next to resolve your issue ...
    There have been instances where Quicken processes malfunctioned because of interference by the Antivirus software which, quietly and without displaying any messages, disallowed a function.
    So, how about trying this: Temporarily disable your Antivirus software, then try working with attachments again. If that makes the process work again, you need to dig into your AV software and see if there are any event log files that indicate an AV - disallowed action. You would then have to figure out how to tell AV to allow this action in Quicken without interference. Perhaps a call to AV support or an AV software update is required to resolve that.

    If it isn't AV throwing a monkey wrench, then the only other suggestion I can give you is to completely remove Quicken from your system using this process http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/getting-started/installation/4108.html
    and reinstall Quicken inculding all the fix release updates, http://knowledgebase.quicken.com/support/articles/getting-started/installation/1686.html (following the "Reinstall Q..." instructions for your version of Windows.)

    OK, I think I"m closer to figuring this out.  I duplicated the image in question as a jpg rather than as a pdf file.  The jpg file attaches just fine.  No go on the PDF file.  Switching PDF viewers doesn't help, and it doesn't seem to matter where or when the pdf file was created nor what pdf creation engine was used.

    Suggestions?

    barry
  • Unknown Member
    edited August 2016
    Well as a workaround this might help.  What I have deselected the "Display PDF in browser" option in the Adobe Reader.  The "browser" is actually an application that embeds the PDF viewer in the application like Quicken.  The option is at: Edit -- Preferences -- Internet -- Display PDF in browser.

    What this is going to do in practice is that when you go to view the attachment it will pop up a separate Adobe Reader window to view it instead of viewing it in the the window that Quicken gives.  It takes a bit to get use to, but it does mean that Quicken will not be the application locking the PDF file, it will the Adobe Reader doing it.

    I don't have a problem with the locks you have, but I do the above to get around the fact that Quicken will not let you have any other window up while you view an attachment.  So for instance you can't look at a statement and do a reconcile at the same time.  This option lets you get around that, at the cost that this will also pop up a separate program/window when viewing PDF files in your web browser.

    Like I said haven't had such a problem with Quicken 2010-2011, but I did have such a problem when trying to delete a PDF attachment in older versions and with this setting set I could delete them, so it should help you with your problem.
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016

    Well as a workaround this might help.  What I have deselected the "Display PDF in browser" option in the Adobe Reader.  The "browser" is actually an application that embeds the PDF viewer in the application like Quicken.  The option is at: Edit -- Preferences -- Internet -- Display PDF in browser.

    What this is going to do in practice is that when you go to view the attachment it will pop up a separate Adobe Reader window to view it instead of viewing it in the the window that Quicken gives.  It takes a bit to get use to, but it does mean that Quicken will not be the application locking the PDF file, it will the Adobe Reader doing it.

    I don't have a problem with the locks you have, but I do the above to get around the fact that Quicken will not let you have any other window up while you view an attachment.  So for instance you can't look at a statement and do a reconcile at the same time.  This option lets you get around that, at the cost that this will also pop up a separate program/window when viewing PDF files in your web browser.

    Like I said haven't had such a problem with Quicken 2010-2011, but I did have such a problem when trying to delete a PDF attachment in older versions and with this setting set I could delete them, so it should help you with your problem.

    I attempted this work around and that didn't do the trick; same attachment window I always get in Quicken, same file icon, and same icon that doesn't open and no document appears in the attachment window.

    barry
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016

    Well as a workaround this might help.  What I have deselected the "Display PDF in browser" option in the Adobe Reader.  The "browser" is actually an application that embeds the PDF viewer in the application like Quicken.  The option is at: Edit -- Preferences -- Internet -- Display PDF in browser.

    What this is going to do in practice is that when you go to view the attachment it will pop up a separate Adobe Reader window to view it instead of viewing it in the the window that Quicken gives.  It takes a bit to get use to, but it does mean that Quicken will not be the application locking the PDF file, it will the Adobe Reader doing it.

    I don't have a problem with the locks you have, but I do the above to get around the fact that Quicken will not let you have any other window up while you view an attachment.  So for instance you can't look at a statement and do a reconcile at the same time.  This option lets you get around that, at the cost that this will also pop up a separate program/window when viewing PDF files in your web browser.

    Like I said haven't had such a problem with Quicken 2010-2011, but I did have such a problem when trying to delete a PDF attachment in older versions and with this setting set I could delete them, so it should help you with your problem.

    switching pdf viewers doesn't seem to help, either; I thought maybe a different viewer might be able to attach the file but no soap.

    barry
  • UKRUKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2018
    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    Worth trying.  Thanks.  I'll report back.

    barry
  • Unknown Member
    edited August 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    One thing.  I only have one reader on my machine, as do I think most people do, so having multiple readers on the machine might affect something (just a thought).
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    have the exact problem. However, I know exactly when it started. I successfully added an attachment to a transaction. I realized it was the wrong type, I wanted other rather than check. So I deleted the attachment. ALL subsequent attempts to add an attachment fail. To be clear this is PDF attachments. JPEG attachments work fine. I have the latest release of Quicken - fully patched. I disabled AV, removed the Display in browser preference from the PDF reader(s). To no avail. Ah yes, also closed everything and rebooted twice only opening Quicken as a foreground process - still get the error. PROCEXP, PROCMON, and TASKMANAGER show nothing accept AcroTray running. The strange thing is I had all the PDF readers, Creators, AV, etc. running before and it worked - performing that delete seems to have put Quicken into a state of bewilderment when it comes to PDFs.
  • Howard RoarkHoward Roark Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    I have no problem deleting a PDF attachment from a transaction then re-attaching that same PDF file as a different type (I tested with your specifics; deleting a "Check" type PDF file, then re-attaching it as an"Other" type PDF file). I was also able to subsequently attach a different PDF file to a different transaction.

    [Q2011 RPM R8 U.S. Windows XP Pro SP3. Acrobat Reader v 9.]
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    I am in a slightly different OS configuration then NoWayJose. I am using [Q2011 RPM R8 U.S. Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1]. The problem still persists. I can delete attachments just fine, just can not add any PDF files at all.
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    I removed all the programs associated with Reader X [10.1.0] and associated .PDF with Acrobat 7 Professional and attachments not work. Although Quickens dependency on Internet Explore now launches the PDF in an Acrobat window, just like IE, instead of in the attachment window. I'll try reinstalling Acrobat Reader X and see if I can reproduce the problem. As a side note, Acrobat Reader X installed an update on 6/15/2011 on my machine.
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    I reinstalled Acrobat 10.1 and things are working fine now. It must have been something that Acrobat 10 was locking.
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    I"m sorry I didn't get back to the helpful conversation about this issue.  I eventually solved this problem by deleting acrobat reader X, rebooting, and then reinstalling acrobat reader x, rebooting, and then it worked.  The first time (see above) that I deleted acrobat reader x I didn't do the reboot.  Not sure why that made a difference, or if it made a difference, but quicken is once again reattaching pdf files.

    I'm not sure why I had the fail in the first place; I don't recall that my circumstances were the same as Tom's, for whatever that might be worth.

    Thanks, everyone.  

    barry
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    Problem started all over again yesterday. Exact same issue that the program reports the file is open by another program. I remove Acrobat Reader X and just have Acrobat Professional 7 installed. Now attachments work fine after reboot. So I am very suspicious it is an incompatibility with Acrobat Reader X, IE 9, and Quicken that could be causing the problem. With Acrobat 7 only installed the attachments are display outside of Quicken in a new Acrobat window, not embedded.

     There is an additional issue though, not all of the transactions that have attachments display the icon indicating there is one. If I delete the attachment and add it again then the icon [paperclip] shows up.
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Barry,
    have you tried removing Adobe Reader X from your system and falling back to an older version of Adobe Reader? You might have tripped over an incompatibility between Quicken and that new Adobe Reader X ... in that case, you might want to give Quicken Support a heads-up.

    I have had the same problem.  When I take my quicken file to a different machine.... all is well.  I can add attachements no problem.  so, the problem is machine specific.  I did just this morning notice that a different .pdf viewer is opening the .pdf attachments.  That is probably why I am getting an error message telling me the file is already in use by another program.  So, does anyone have any idea how one would designate which .pdf viewer opens when attaching a file with Quicken Home and Business 2011?  I am also running the latest version of Adobe PDF Reader 10.something.  :)

    Thanks in advance for any comments.  And yes, I have validated and super validated my .qdf file.
  • UKRUKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2018
    Mulder1949,
    please try as has been suggested here in this post: Remove Adobe Reader X from your system, reboot, reinstall Adobe X, reboot. See if that solves the problem.
    If it doesn't, try an older version of Adobe Reader prior to version X instead.
    Next, contact both Adobe and Quicken Support and report this issue.
  • Unknown Member
    edited July 2016
    UKR said:

    Mulder1949,
    please try as has been suggested here in this post: Remove Adobe Reader X from your system, reboot, reinstall Adobe X, reboot. See if that solves the problem.
    If it doesn't, try an older version of Adobe Reader prior to version X instead.
    Next, contact both Adobe and Quicken Support and report this issue.

    Mulder1949 - I had tried that, it worked for a while then a software update [not sure if it was the Microsoft or Adobe] occurred and the problem was back. Removing Acrobat X Reader and sticking with the older Adobe product to date has not made the issue return. There is just something about the combination.

    I am curious if anyone know how much Quicken is dependent upon IE to present this and other data. I ask because if this behavior with PDF's is related to Acrobat X and the dependency is tight, then would not this problem be occurring with IE use outside of Quicken as well? I ask as I do not use IE regularly enough to notice if it was occurring.
  • Unknown Member
    edited August 2016
    Quicken is quite dependent on IE and its settings, but the PDF attachment is more related to Windows and whatever PDF viewer(s) you have on your machine.

    In other words. IE doesn't know how to read a PDF file, instead to display a PDF in a IE window/web page it uses the PDF viewer to embed it in the window, so it is basically doing the same thing Quicken is doing.  That is why you find the option to display embedded or not, in the PDF viewer, not in Quicken or IE.

    I said Quicken is quite dependent on IE, but it is for other reasons, as is Quicken uses the Windows control that allows it to embed a web browser in Quicken.  What this means is that Quicken is making calls to the back end of IE to get web pages and such.  It uses this not only to display web pages in Quicken, but also for fetching web pages for Express Web Connect, and for the first web page in Direct connect which redirects it to real OFX server.  The settings in IE affect this "embedded" web browser just as much as they affect the full IE.  So for instance Chase has done a stupid thing of sending Quicken to a web site with a different domain then www.chase.com and then redirects Quicken to www.chase.com, and it does this setting cookies to know where it came from.  The end result is that the user has to make sure that IE will accept third party cookies (at least from this other web site) for Chase downloading to work.  The default settings in IE are setup to allow this, but the user can change them and mess up downloading into Quicken.

    I mentioned Windows, because of course the mapping to what application supplies what support and such is in the Windows registry, not to mention the standards of how embedding code from one application into another works.
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