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Quicken for mac slow to open

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  • PaulPaul Member ✭✭
    edited July 2018

    I have been frustrated by this issue for a year.  I am now running Quicken for Mac 5.6.5, which claims to be the latest  version, on OS 10.13.6 on a 2017 iMac with 8GBs of RAM and Quicken takes 2 minutes to start and load my file which I believe is about 30 MBs of data.  I tried asking Support via chat why this is the case and why Quicken did not at least put up a splash screen with some indication of progress or what was happening.  The only answer I could get out of the support agent was that I need to disable all firewalls on my computer for Quicken to work properly.  This makes no sense to me.  I am not automatically updating accounts or security transactions or anything (to my knowledge) when I start Quicken.  I do all this manually and have no problem with the speed with which it happens when I do.  I was told that Quicken needs to "verify my information" when it starts, but it appears that my "information" is just an ID and a password.  I questioned why I would even need to upload my ID and password in order to just look at my Quicken accounts and the answer was that Quicken takes my security very seriously.  I was asked at first to  check my internet speeds.  They were 103.5 Mbps download and 8.88 Mbps upload, and I was told that the discrepancy between the upload and download speeds was an issue.  I questioned this and was told that I had to disable firewalls permanently to run Quicken.  None of this makes any sense to me and I began to wonder whether the agent really knew what he was talking about.

    Does this make sense to anyone else?  Has anyone found a solution to the startup time required by Quicken for Mac?

    It makes me worry that Quicken is storing my financial information somewhere on some cloud without my knowing it.

    Thanks.

    PS After I originally posted this I went to my System Preferences to check my firewall setting and discovered that it was already off.  I guess for some reason I had turned it off and didn't realize it.  So what the agent was saying about the cause of this issue is now doubly suspicious.

    Wow, you got a REALLY bad agent.  Of course your internet connection speed is asynchronous -- most cable and DSL connectivity has faster download and slower upload, unless you are on fiber or gigabit service.
       When speaking of 'firewalls' he was probably thinking your router is blocking something, but since the communications are all HTTPS that seems very unlikely.

    In my experience, version 5.6.5 made a huge improvement in opening my 220MB file -- down from nearly 3 minutes to just over 30 seconds. I have data back to 1999 or so, and changes added in v5.6.5 'defragged' the database to bring the speed back.  I'm running a 2013 iMac with a spinning hard disk and 16GB of RAM.

    When you first ran v5.6.5 did it put up a dialog about updating your database?
  • John_in_NCJohn_in_NC SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2018

    I have been frustrated by this issue for a year.  I am now running Quicken for Mac 5.6.5, which claims to be the latest  version, on OS 10.13.6 on a 2017 iMac with 8GBs of RAM and Quicken takes 2 minutes to start and load my file which I believe is about 30 MBs of data.  I tried asking Support via chat why this is the case and why Quicken did not at least put up a splash screen with some indication of progress or what was happening.  The only answer I could get out of the support agent was that I need to disable all firewalls on my computer for Quicken to work properly.  This makes no sense to me.  I am not automatically updating accounts or security transactions or anything (to my knowledge) when I start Quicken.  I do all this manually and have no problem with the speed with which it happens when I do.  I was told that Quicken needs to "verify my information" when it starts, but it appears that my "information" is just an ID and a password.  I questioned why I would even need to upload my ID and password in order to just look at my Quicken accounts and the answer was that Quicken takes my security very seriously.  I was asked at first to  check my internet speeds.  They were 103.5 Mbps download and 8.88 Mbps upload, and I was told that the discrepancy between the upload and download speeds was an issue.  I questioned this and was told that I had to disable firewalls permanently to run Quicken.  None of this makes any sense to me and I began to wonder whether the agent really knew what he was talking about.

    Does this make sense to anyone else?  Has anyone found a solution to the startup time required by Quicken for Mac?

    It makes me worry that Quicken is storing my financial information somewhere on some cloud without my knowing it.

    Thanks.

    PS After I originally posted this I went to my System Preferences to check my firewall setting and discovered that it was already off.  I guess for some reason I had turned it off and didn't realize it.  So what the agent was saying about the cause of this issue is now doubly suspicious.

    Agreed, those, support agent explanations make little sense for the issue at hand.

    The focus of the speedup was regarding more efficient downloading of quotes, not downloading quotes for securities no longer held, and handling of sync conflict errors for those who use mobile. There were a few other minor things, but it wasn't a "defrag" or rebuilding of the database.

    For a lot of users, this focus led to a speedup. But users with complex data files might not notice as large of performance increase.
  • jacobsjacobs SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2018

    I have been frustrated by this issue for a year.  I am now running Quicken for Mac 5.6.5, which claims to be the latest  version, on OS 10.13.6 on a 2017 iMac with 8GBs of RAM and Quicken takes 2 minutes to start and load my file which I believe is about 30 MBs of data.  I tried asking Support via chat why this is the case and why Quicken did not at least put up a splash screen with some indication of progress or what was happening.  The only answer I could get out of the support agent was that I need to disable all firewalls on my computer for Quicken to work properly.  This makes no sense to me.  I am not automatically updating accounts or security transactions or anything (to my knowledge) when I start Quicken.  I do all this manually and have no problem with the speed with which it happens when I do.  I was told that Quicken needs to "verify my information" when it starts, but it appears that my "information" is just an ID and a password.  I questioned why I would even need to upload my ID and password in order to just look at my Quicken accounts and the answer was that Quicken takes my security very seriously.  I was asked at first to  check my internet speeds.  They were 103.5 Mbps download and 8.88 Mbps upload, and I was told that the discrepancy between the upload and download speeds was an issue.  I questioned this and was told that I had to disable firewalls permanently to run Quicken.  None of this makes any sense to me and I began to wonder whether the agent really knew what he was talking about.

    Does this make sense to anyone else?  Has anyone found a solution to the startup time required by Quicken for Mac?

    It makes me worry that Quicken is storing my financial information somewhere on some cloud without my knowing it.

    Thanks.

    PS After I originally posted this I went to my System Preferences to check my firewall setting and discovered that it was already off.  I guess for some reason I had turned it off and didn't realize it.  So what the agent was saying about the cause of this issue is now doubly suspicious.

    This support agent, unfortunately, had no clue. I hate when support people look for some external issue they can blame, rather than looking for the real cause. Upload speed is the problem? Oh, come on! Support may not have all the answers, but they should know that very slow launch times have been a problem for some Quicken Mac users, and that there have been recent database changes to improve performance. 

    John, actually, I think this had little to do with downloading of quotes. In my test file, I don't download *anything* -- no transactions, no quotes, no mobile, nothing. And yet I've still experienced 30-35 second startups every day. After I provided a copy of my file to the development team, Marcus indicated they discovered some issues with the database where it can become somewhat like a fragmented file system that slows down performance on hard drives. I'd guess that the database update that we saw Quicken perform after installing the last update did some database optimization akin to defragmenting a hard drive, and there might be some additional tweaks in future updates.
    QMac 2007 & QMac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • jacobsjacobs SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2018
    Bad news. After seeing a very fast launch time the first few times I launched Quicken after installing version 5.6.5 and declaring victory, my performance has reverted to the typical 30+ second launch time I've always experienced. The first time I saw the slow launch, I tried to ignore it; I hadn't expected it and didn't watch the clock. But tonight I timed it, and I'm back to the same 30+ second launch as always. I'm glad the recent changes are working for some, but all the slow launch problems are unfortunately not resolved yet. Sigh. I'm at least encouraged that the developers have seen the problem and are working to understand and fix it.
    QMac 2007 & QMac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • Alan HammerliAlan Hammerli Member ✭✭
    edited July 2018
    If I could get to 30 to 35 seconds, I would feel blessed.  I am about 9 minutes longer.  I have been a Quicken user since 1995 and have a large data base. I lived outside the US for some years so I have multi currencies in the data base and employee stock options (all have exercised).  Don't understand why their data base team cannot figure this out.
  • Craig in ERCraig in ER Member ✭✭
    edited July 2018
    I have seen a huge reduction is launch time for Quicken since upgrading to version 5.6.5.  It used to take on average 2 minutes and 30 seconds for Quicken to launch and open my file.  After upgrading launch time has been reduced to (on average) 12 seconds.  I do want to note that this launch time (both before and after upgrade) is after a cold start or restart of my Mac which caused the longest launch times.  If I quit Quicken and then reopen at anytime later but with no restart of my Mac the average launch time is reduced to 3.5 seconds.  Quicken still has some "tweaking" to do yet and I am sure they will.  BTW, I was also a user who worked with the Quicken team by sending in a data file for analysis and running some tests for them.
  • Richard PattersonRichard Patterson Member ✭✭
    edited August 2018

    I have been frustrated by this issue for a year.  I am now running Quicken for Mac 5.6.5, which claims to be the latest  version, on OS 10.13.6 on a 2017 iMac with 8GBs of RAM and Quicken takes 2 minutes to start and load my file which I believe is about 30 MBs of data.  I tried asking Support via chat why this is the case and why Quicken did not at least put up a splash screen with some indication of progress or what was happening.  The only answer I could get out of the support agent was that I need to disable all firewalls on my computer for Quicken to work properly.  This makes no sense to me.  I am not automatically updating accounts or security transactions or anything (to my knowledge) when I start Quicken.  I do all this manually and have no problem with the speed with which it happens when I do.  I was told that Quicken needs to "verify my information" when it starts, but it appears that my "information" is just an ID and a password.  I questioned why I would even need to upload my ID and password in order to just look at my Quicken accounts and the answer was that Quicken takes my security very seriously.  I was asked at first to  check my internet speeds.  They were 103.5 Mbps download and 8.88 Mbps upload, and I was told that the discrepancy between the upload and download speeds was an issue.  I questioned this and was told that I had to disable firewalls permanently to run Quicken.  None of this makes any sense to me and I began to wonder whether the agent really knew what he was talking about.

    Does this make sense to anyone else?  Has anyone found a solution to the startup time required by Quicken for Mac?

    It makes me worry that Quicken is storing my financial information somewhere on some cloud without my knowing it.

    Thanks.

    PS After I originally posted this I went to my System Preferences to check my firewall setting and discovered that it was already off.  I guess for some reason I had turned it off and didn't realize it.  So what the agent was saying about the cause of this issue is now doubly suspicious.

    Well... After I upgraded to 5.7.2 Quicken for Mac opens my data file in 5 seconds instead of 2 minutes AND it puts up a little dialog box to let me know what it is doing.  I'd love to know what the problem was.  I'm tempted to say, "How hard was that, fellas?"
  • jacobsjacobs SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2018

    I have been frustrated by this issue for a year.  I am now running Quicken for Mac 5.6.5, which claims to be the latest  version, on OS 10.13.6 on a 2017 iMac with 8GBs of RAM and Quicken takes 2 minutes to start and load my file which I believe is about 30 MBs of data.  I tried asking Support via chat why this is the case and why Quicken did not at least put up a splash screen with some indication of progress or what was happening.  The only answer I could get out of the support agent was that I need to disable all firewalls on my computer for Quicken to work properly.  This makes no sense to me.  I am not automatically updating accounts or security transactions or anything (to my knowledge) when I start Quicken.  I do all this manually and have no problem with the speed with which it happens when I do.  I was told that Quicken needs to "verify my information" when it starts, but it appears that my "information" is just an ID and a password.  I questioned why I would even need to upload my ID and password in order to just look at my Quicken accounts and the answer was that Quicken takes my security very seriously.  I was asked at first to  check my internet speeds.  They were 103.5 Mbps download and 8.88 Mbps upload, and I was told that the discrepancy between the upload and download speeds was an issue.  I questioned this and was told that I had to disable firewalls permanently to run Quicken.  None of this makes any sense to me and I began to wonder whether the agent really knew what he was talking about.

    Does this make sense to anyone else?  Has anyone found a solution to the startup time required by Quicken for Mac?

    It makes me worry that Quicken is storing my financial information somewhere on some cloud without my knowing it.

    Thanks.

    PS After I originally posted this I went to my System Preferences to check my firewall setting and discovered that it was already off.  I guess for some reason I had turned it off and didn't realize it.  So what the agent was saying about the cause of this issue is now doubly suspicious.

    Richard, I don't know the answer your question about what they found, but I do know they had the engineers working on it for some time to crack the problem. I also think one of the issues is that there can be big difference with different data files and different hardware, so what you you and me was a major problem may not have originally been visible to the development team as a big issue for a sizable number of users. 

    I can perhaps illustrate with another example: There's another slowness problem which has plagued me with Quicken for the past four years involving the Search box, which I reported multiple times. I've been puzzled why more people haven't complained about this terrible problem and why it hasn't been fixed. I can type a word in the Search box and have it take nearly two minutes of a spinning beach ball until the program shows search results. I recently did some testing of something unrelated and discovered that the Search problem is tied to having the Transfer column visible; if that one field isn't visible in the register, Search works very quickly -- but I have it visible on in all my registers. I never would have suspected that correlation, and I'd guess an engineer who looked into this in the past might not have been able to replicate the specific condition which causes the problem. Now that I've pinpointed the issue, I would guess an engineer will be able to find out why it's a problem and fix it.
    QMac 2007 & QMac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • smayer97smayer97 SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2018
    jacobs said:

    Bad news. After seeing a very fast launch time the first few times I launched Quicken after installing version 5.6.5 and declaring victory, my performance has reverted to the typical 30+ second launch time I've always experienced. The first time I saw the slow launch, I tried to ignore it; I hadn't expected it and didn't watch the clock. But tonight I timed it, and I'm back to the same 30+ second launch as always. I'm glad the recent changes are working for some, but all the slow launch problems are unfortunately not resolved yet. Sigh. I'm at least encouraged that the developers have seen the problem and are working to understand and fix it.

    have your launch times stayed bad?
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  • jacobsjacobs SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2018
    jacobs said:

    Bad news. After seeing a very fast launch time the first few times I launched Quicken after installing version 5.6.5 and declaring victory, my performance has reverted to the typical 30+ second launch time I've always experienced. The first time I saw the slow launch, I tried to ignore it; I hadn't expected it and didn't watch the clock. But tonight I timed it, and I'm back to the same 30+ second launch as always. I'm glad the recent changes are working for some, but all the slow launch problems are unfortunately not resolved yet. Sigh. I'm at least encouraged that the developers have seen the problem and are working to understand and fix it.

    No! I should have remembered to follow up this post. The release of version 5.7.x solved the problem for good. Quicken launches in about 3 seconds and opens my data file in 4 additional seconds. After nearly 4 years of slow launches, it's wonderful! Consistently... 100% of the time. And others have posted similar/better speed improvements. I believe they found and fixed the problem. Hooray!
    QMac 2007 & QMac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
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