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Quicken 5.17.2: HUGE BUGS. (Edited)

Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
edited July 2020 in Errors and Troubleshooting (Mac)
So, updating to the new Quicken 5.17.2 was a huge mistake for us. Our advice would be to avoid updating to this version. It has some really large bugs in it.

#1. The biggest bug of all is that "searching all visible columns" NO LONGER WORKS PROPERLY. We are searching for a single word that we often type into the memo field. The word is the name of a company that we work with. When we type this word into the search box, it brings up all of the matching transactions. Okay, fine. So far, so good. HOWEVER – QUICKEN ALSO INCLUDED TONS OF OTHER TRANSACTIONS IN THE SEARCH RESULTS THAT DON'T MATCH AT ALL! There is **NOTHING** in any of these other transactions that matches our search criteria! Nothing at all! Not in the visible columns, not in the hidden columns, nowhere. Not even a PIECE of the word that we're searching for appears in these other transactions. Quicken is LITERALLY just RANDOMLY picking RANDOM TRANSACTIONS and adding them into our search results! The word that we are searching for doesn't even come close to ANY of the words we've typed into these other transactions. So this is just a major bug.

#2. Quicken 5.17.2 isn't calculating proper balances for our reconciliations. It's giving us the wrong "Difference" amount when "Using Statement Balance" because it's not adding up the math correctly. We can clearly do the math on our own, which Quicken is NOT doing correctly. We had to create our own Adjustment Balances, just to get Quicken to reconcile our accounts properly. We had the proper "prior balance" and the proper "ending balance", but Quicken just isn't figuring it out properly. Never had this problem ever before. We only have 7 transactions in each account, so it's very easy to do the math properly, and see that we're doing the math properly but Quicken is not.

#3. After quitting & relaunching Quicken, custom reports do not remember their custom columns, nor the sizing/ordering of existing columns. No custom columns will remain through a quit & relaunch.

Best Answers

Answers

  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    edited July 2020
    Okay, as far as #1 is concerned, I can see why this bug is happening. Because of another bug!

    When I create a report in this new version of Quicken, the transactions are showing up on my report with PHANTOM MEMOS!! That's right — you heard it here first — PHANTOM MEMOS!

    For some of my transactions on the report, the REPORT ITSELF is showing me MEMOS THAT DON'T EXIST FOR THE TRANSACTIONS! 

    In other words, the report is DISPLAYING A MEMO that doesn't actually appear on the transaction itself!

    When I double-click on one of the transactions on my report that has a phantom memo displayed on it, the transaction opens up in its account register with its NORMAL memo displayed on it. 

    So, somewhere underneath the hood, Quicken is assigning phantom memos to my transactions.
  • Dennis@1[email protected] Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2020
    I am unable to duplicate your "Phantom Memo" issue. It could be possible data file corruption. You might try running "sanitize file" under the help menu and\or opening the pre-update backup file that was created and see if anything changes.

    Edit: I guess sanitize file really doesn't apply here. I was thinking more along the lines of the "validate and super validate" in Qwin.
  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    edited July 2020
    Wow, thank you so much, @jacobs. They're not kidding when they say you're a superuser! ;) And you're a superuser of mulch, too! ;)

    I just looked at my data the way that you did, and that is EXACTLY what's happening to me as well! 

    You're 100% right – Quicken is still remembering split data, even though it's not a split transaction at all!

    I had no idea that "Memo" and "Notes" were 2 separate fields.

    I certainly wouldn't put the fault for this on us — we clearly didn't want these transactions to be split, but Quicken is still holding over split transaction information. Wouldn't this be some sort of an "AutoFill holdover" problem on Quicken's end?

    But regardless of who's at fault for this, I'm so thrilled that you were able to figure this out! That's pretty amazing that you were able to replicate it on your end by finding an ACTUAL KEYWORD where it reproduced the problem for you! :)

    My question for you is this: Is there any way for us to quickly find all the transactions in our entire register where this problem might have happened? I'd like to go back and clean them all up as quickly & easily as possible.

    Thank you so much!! This was driving me crazy!! 😜
  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    p.s. I'm realizing right now, for the first time, that we can't generate a report based on "Memo" or "Notes". This would certainly be helpful in order to solve this problem.

    Didn't the old Quicken 2007 used to have this ability — the ability to generate reports based on "Memo" or "Notes"?

  • jacobsjacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    @Scott Rose  Well, I'm glad we got to the bottom of it! I really don't think we can call this a bug or even flaw in Quicken Mac. There are many people, myself included, who use the Memo/Notes field in the main transaction and the Notes field in the splits separately. It's by design, and people would scream if there was only a single Memo field for each transaction.

    And when re-using a transaction that previously had splits, it is designed for us to use the "Clear All Splits" button to prevent an old memo from living on in a different transaction. In my case, and probably yours, we failed to use that button because it saved the step of re-entering a category after deleting the split. And that would have still been okay, had we tabbed over to the Notes field and blanked it. 

    I do think the argument could be made that a transaction without a split shouldn't retain a Note on a split line. But… I'm pretty sure I've read anecdotes here where users actually take advantage of that functionality to record additional information. (In Quicken 2007, the characters in Memo/Notes fields were limited.) 

    It would be great if there was some way to query the database for transactions where there is no split but a Note on the split line, but I can't think of a way for us as users could do that. The programmers could likely easily build such a query, but I can't even think of a place to suggest they make such a tool accessible to users.

    Scott Rose said:
    p.s. I'm realizing right now, for the first time, that we can't generate a report based on "Memo" or "Notes". This would certainly be helpful in order to solve this problem.

    Didn't the old Quicken 2007 used to have this ability — the ability to generate reports based on "Memo" or "Notes"?
    Correct on both counts. From what the developers have said, they felt users in Quicken 2007 generated a lot of reports just to find a specific transaction or group of transactions. So the concept when modern Quicken Mac was created was to make finding many things accessible on the fly via a powerful Search feature instead of reports. I think they got it partly right, but partly wrong.

    Search is very useful, and replaces the need to create Quick Reports in many cases. And Search results can be printed if desired, so it functions as a report when needed. But there are at least two key shortcomings: (1) Split lines aren't singled out, so if you Search for all your "mulch" transactions from last year, the total is the total of all transactions that include "mulch" in a Memo/Note field, including split lines unrelated to the search. (2) You can't save a Search the way to can save a Report, so it there's something you need to find repeatedly, you have to re-create the Search (and any customization to the resulting register). 
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    edited July 2020
    Thanks, @jacobs, for the analysis of the various shortcomings in the reports & the search field. I wonder how we can get their attention to see if they can improve in these areas. These areas would be of much value to me.
    And when re-using a transaction that previously had splits, it is designed for us to use the "Clear All Splits" button to prevent an old memo from living on in a different transaction. In my case, and probably yours, we failed to use that button because it saved the step of re-entering a category after deleting the split. And that would have still been okay, had we tabbed over to the Notes field and blanked it. 

    This makes sense, but there does still seem to be some strange underlying bugs in Quicken that make this problem crop up more regularly than it should.

    And I believe that all of these bugs have to do with the "Transaction Info" window, which can be found at "File > Get Info" (or command-I).

    I've been doing a lot of cleanup of my transactions for this year, so I've been selecting MULTIPLE TRANSACTIONS SIMULTANEOUSLY, and then hitting command-I (File > Get Info) to bring up the "Transaction Info" window for all of those selected transactions.

    Within this "Transaction Info" window, I've been doing a variety of different things, such as changing the "Payee Name" or completely clearing out the "Memos/Notes" section or changing the "Memos/Notes". 

    Now I've NEVER changed more than one field when using the "Transaction Info" window, but I am always changing that one field for MULTIPLE SELECTED TRANSACTIONS simultaneously. 

    As a result of using that "Transaction Info" window, I often suddenly end up back in the same buggy situation again where those phantom "Split Notes" suddenly re-appear for transactions where they shouldn't have appeared.

    So, I think that there are a few problems going on here:

    1. Within the "Transaction Info" window, it gives us a combined field for "Memo/Notes", but it's really not giving us the opportunity to change "Notes" there. It's really only giving us the opportunity to change "Memos" there. And then, Quicken seems to randomly choose the "Notes" from one of your selected transactions —and it suddenly applies those notes to all of the rest of your selected transactions. This must be a bug. If Notes are part of splits, then Notes shouldn't be involved with the "Transaction Info" at all.

    2. Within the "Transaction Info" window, when changing the "Payee Name", it seems to update the phantom "Notes" behind the scenes if it can find a recent matching QuickFill rule for that Payee Name that included those "Notes".

    So I think that the real problems are coming down to bugs within this "Transaction info" window.

    In actuality, since the "Transaction Info" window allows you to modify BOTH split transactions AND non-split transactions simultaneously, that window really should never allow users to edit the Notes at all, unless the Notes were broken up into different split lines.

    So there seems to be a disconnect between the "Transaction Info" window and the actual structure of the transactions themselves.

  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    edited July 2020
    In other words:

    That "Transaction info" window has created a unified field called "Memo/Notes", when in reality, transactions never contain a unified field called "Memo/Notes".
  • jacobsjacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Yes, I just think you're mischaracterizing it. Quicken essentially has two fields: a single Memo field for a transaction, and multiple Notes for splits. (Unfortunately, Quicken isn't consistent with the naming; it calls the main transaction field a Note in one place and a memo in another…

     
    …but they are in fact the same field. (Type in one place, it shows up in the other.) But the Notes in a split are separate fields for each split line.

    In many places in Quicken, though, it merges these two together into a combined Memo/Notes field. For instance, if you look at a report which has the Memo/Notes field visible, and a transaction that has both a Memo on the main transaction and a Note on a split, you'll see Quicken presents them both, separated by a colon:
          This is the tax memo:This is the split line note

    If you want to clear out a split, you either must blanks every field on every split line, or use the Clear All Splits button, which does this for you. Again, there's no bug here, other than perhaps the inconsistent naming of the main transaction's field. Both you and I have found we haven't consistently done this correctly over time, but I that's on us and not a bug in the program. 


    Scott Rose said:
    In actuality, since the "Transaction Info" window allows you to modify BOTH split transactions AND non-split transactions simultaneously, that window really should never allow users to edit the Notes at all, unless the Notes were broken up into different split lines.
    No, the Transaction Info window does not affect splits. It says so right at the top of the window:



    Using the Transaction Info window for mass edits can be useful -- but only if splits are never involved. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • smayer97smayer97 SuperUser, Mac Beta, Canada Beta ✭✭✭✭✭
    I believe the history of the Memo/Notes field has to do with merges between Mac and Windows. In QMac, there was only the Memo field. In Windows, they have both. But in migrating from QWin to QMac, the Memo and Notes fields are merged.
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  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    @jacobs, thanks so much for the further explanation, but let me explain why I believe that this is a huge Quicken problem and not a human problem, and a problem which Quicken needs to resolve:

    There is ABSOLUTELY ZERO CONSISTENCY in Quicken Mac when it comes to the "Memo/Notes" field. No consistency at all. Let me explain:

    I think that we are in agreement that the only way to actually get to the "Notes" field is to open up the split screen, even if you don't have a split for your transaction. Am I correct in this assumption that this is the only way to do date entry in the "Notes" field? As far as I can tell, there is no other "Notes" field except for the one in the split screen. If you want to add "Notes" to a transaction, you are REQUIRED by Quicken to open up the split screen, correct?

    If we are in agreement so far, then this is how Quicken acts totally inconsistently: 

    1. If you add a new transaction for a brand new payee and you open up the split screen to type in some "Notes", those "Notes" do NOT appear in the "Memo/Notes" field in the account register. Even after you save the transaction, those "Notes" will NEVER appear in the "Memo/Notes" field. The "Memo/Notes" field stays completely blank. (Be sure to save QuickFill rules for "all fields" when you save the transaction, before moving onto #2 below.)

    2. HOWEVER, the next time you create a transaction with that exact same payee, Quicken's QuickFill rules will suddenly DUPLICATE the notes into your "Memo/Notes" field for the very first time. They had never shown up in the "Memo/Notes" field before, but now suddenly, for the very first time, your Notes have magically appeared in the "Memo/Notes" field. Notice that I said "duplicate", not "mirror". That's because, and this is where the major bug occurs — you can NOW CLEAR OUT THE MEMO DIRECTLY FROM THE MEMO/NOTES FIELD, leaving yourself with a completely blank "Memo/Notes" field. Which would lead any user to believe that you are simply editing the "Memo" field, since that's what you see right there. However, you would be completely incorrect if you assumed that. Because guess what? If you cleared out the "Memo" field but you open up your splits view, you would be horrified to find that the "Notes" are STILL THERE in the splits view! So Quicken Mac has actually DUPLICATED the Notes across.2 different fields..There is absolutely no way that any normal user like myself would ever be able to figure out this bizarre & twisted logic of Quicken Mac. No way at all.

    3. Yet oddly enough — the same exact thing happens in reverse. In #2 above, if you had decided to clear out the "Notes" from the split screen (instead of from the "Memo/Notes" field), the "Memo" field will remain behind. So Quicken has actually DUPLICATED the Notes into 2 different fields, which must now both be managed separately by the user. This is the very definition of insanity! ;) 

    4. But, as if this wasn't bad enough, things get even worse. Much worse. Let's say that you actually DID want a different Memo from your Notes field for some reason. (Most people would never knowingly do this because there's no clarity as to how this would actually appear on a report, so it's more likely that people have accidentally ended up in this bad situation because of the problems listed above.) Go ahead and create a transaction that has a different Memo & Notes field. Save the transaction and save the QuickFill rules for "all fields". The next time you create the transaction for that payee, your Memo & Notes field have repopulated. Most people won't realize this has happened, but that's what happened. Before saving the transaction, CLEAR OUT THE MEMO FIELD. That's right — COMPLETELY CLEAR OUT THE MEMO FIELD, but LEAVE the differing notes field intact. Save the transaction, and save the QuickFill rules for "all fields".Now, the next time you create a transaction for this payee, guess what? Your memo that you cleared out has SUDDENLY REAPPEARED AGAIN! In other words, Quicken NEVER ACTUALLY SAVED YOUR NEW QUICKFILL RULES! You literally cannot get away from the original memo reappearing again, even if you cleared it out and saved your new QuickFill rules. You are actually required to go into Window > Payees & Rules > QuickFill Rules and update it there.

    5. All of the same problems happen within the "Transaction info" window as well.

    So this is just complete & total madness across the board.

    Quicken Mac SEEMS to be slightly better if you start by typing in a Memo for a brand new payee (without ever opening up the splits screen), but I haven't fully tested that yet to be 100% sure of this.
  • jacobsjacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    smayer97 said:
    I believe the history of the Memo/Notes field has to do with merges between Mac and Windows. In QMac, there was only the Memo field. In Windows, they have both. But in migrating from QWin to QMac, the Memo and Notes fields are merged.
    I'm not sure about your nomenclature here. (Not that it really matters.) Quicken Mac has always had separate Memo fields in the main transaction and split lines -- certainly going back at least two decades or longer. In Quicken 2007, they are both called "Memo"; in modern Quicken Mac, the name Memo and Notes are used somewhat interchangeably, but they function the same as they did in the past. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • jacobsjacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    @Scott Rose You've certainly found some inconsistencies in odd-use cases, but for most real-life use, I'm not sure they're very critical. I think it's clear the intention is to not use the split line note for a transaction with no splits. If you use the main transaction Memo/Notes field only, results are consistent. If you re-use a Payee which auto-fills with a split, and you don't want the split anymore, the expectation is to click the Clear All Splits button, and the split details, including notes, will be removed. 

    You may want to use the Report a Problem feature in Quicken to note the issues (probably one at a time). It's unlikely the development team will ever read this discussion, I'm afraid.

    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • smayer97smayer97 SuperUser, Mac Beta, Canada Beta ✭✭✭✭✭
    Just to add to this a little more:

    Scott Rose said:

    4. ...(Most people would never knowingly do this because there's no clarity as to how this would actually appear on a report, so it's more likely that people have accidentally ended up in this bad situation because of the problems listed above.)
    In QM2007 I use the transaction "parent" memo vs the split line "child" memo fields separately EXTENSIVELY where the "split line" only contains a memo and it is VERY intentional. The main reason I do is because the memo line in QM2007 is limited in length (and other users have reported doing the same), BUT there are times when I have multiple split lines with zero value for the purpose of creating separate memos for different categories for the same transaction.

    And the scenario where there is only one "split line" due to an extra memo filled in is currently problematic in the conversion from QM2007 to new QMac as this is not currently handled properly, especially if a transfer is involved too.
    @Scott Rose You've certainly found some inconsistencies in odd-use cases, but for most real-life use, I'm not sure they're very critical. I think it's clear the intention is to not use the split line note for a transaction with no splits.

    Though the intention may be so, it is currently a loss of data during conversion. If converted in a way that say, merges the 2 memo fields, then I can see how this would not be needed anymore since the amount of text allowed in new QMac is enormous.

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  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    edited July 2020
    The Quicken problem happens in reverse, too: 

    I just typed up a new transaction, typed something into the Memo field, and Quicken moved that Memo into the Split Notes field in the QuickFill Rules window.
  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    Further explanation:

    For example, right now, just 10 seconds ago, I added a brand new transaction into my register and typed in a memo. (Not a Note, because it's not a split transaction.)

    HOWEVER, in Quicken's QuickFill Rules screen, Quicken duplicated my memo into the "Split Notes" area! This is NOT a split transaction. There should be absolutely no Notes in the split area at all.

    So then, I added another transaction to my register for the same Payee, and the previous Memo showed up. I cleared out the Memo, but Quicken still left the "Split Notes" intact. So now, my new transaction has a phantom Notes embedded into this transaction, even though I can't visually see the Notes because it's part of the split screen!

    So now, for every single transaction that I create in Quicken, I'm required to manually open up the splits screen and clear out the erroneous split note that shouldn't be there.
  • DBW2020DBW2020 Member ✭✭
    > @"Scott Rose" said:
    > So, updating to the new Quicken 5.17.2 was a huge mistake for us. Our advice would be to avoid updating to this version. It has some really large bugs in it.
    >

    > #2. Quicken 5.17.2 isn't calculating proper balances for our reconciliations. It's giving us the wrong "Difference" amount when "Using Statement Balance" because it's not adding up the math correctly. We can clearly do the math on our own, which Quicken is NOT doing correctly. We had to create our own Adjustment Balances, just to get Quicken to reconcile our accounts properly. We had the proper "prior balance" and the proper "ending balance", but Quicken just isn't figuring it out properly. Never had this problem ever before. We only have 7 transactions in each account, so it's very easy to do the math properly, and see that we're doing the math properly but Quicken is not.
    >


    I don't see any useful response to item #2. I have the same problem. Customer support was of no use. They will not allow the version to be rolled back to previous which worked. Has anyone resolved item #2? This is a bigger problem than the one discussed in this thread as far as I am concerned.
  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    edited July 2020
    Thank you for reminding all of us about #2 in my list of bugs. As far as I'm concerned, Quicken Mac has gone off the rails. In my personal opinion, this product is not the reliable product that it once was as Quicken 2007. I'm looking at alternatives right now, and I am considering [removed]. With 30 years of loyalty to Quicken, it pains me to consider leaving. But it seems like these Quicken people have very low quality control.
  • Allen H guntzAllen H guntz Member ✭
    I also have had the same problem on statement reconciliations since the 5.17.2 update. Have had to change starting statement balances (manual reconciling) to correct starting balance and then had to do adjustments after done reconciling. I wonder what next month will be like?
    Also many of my categories are now long strings of numbers but after finding the correct string and upon hitting return it does show the correct category. Very frustrating!
  • Dennis@1[email protected] Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2020
    DBW2020 said:
    I don't see any useful response to item #2. I have the same problem. Customer support was of no use. They will not allow the version to be rolled back to previous which worked. Has anyone resolved item #2? This is a bigger problem than the one discussed in this thread as far as I am concerned.
    They may not have a way to download the previous version (5.17.1), but if you have a time machine backup you can restore the older version. I always go into the applications folder and make a duplicate of the current version before I allow the program to update itself. Just in case, for issues like this. I'll rename the duplicate by the version number.(Quicken 5.17.1)  
  • Scott RoseScott Rose Mac Beta Beta
    edited July 2020
    Allen H guntz said:
    I also have had the same problem on statement reconciliations since the 5.17.2 update. Have had to change starting statement balances (manual reconciling) to correct starting balance and then had to do adjustments after done reconciling. I wonder what next month will be like?
    Also many of my categories are now long strings of numbers but after finding the correct string and upon hitting return it does show the correct category. Very frustrating!

    Allen, funny you should mention that, because I ALSO EXPERIENCED THE EXACT SAME BUG! I should have included it in this thread here, but instead, I created a separate thread for it here:

    https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7877887/major-bug-categories-changed-to-indecipherable-text-syncing-cloud-data-fails

    To both @DBW2020 and @Allen%20H%20guntz:

    I've been told by a Quicken team member via email that Quicken employees do NOT monitor any of our threads in this forum. And that our ONLY HOPE OR CHANCE or them seeing these bug reports would be if we post in the ONE AND ONLY THREAD that is created whenever a new update is released.

    So, if both of you can please post in this thread for the Quicken 5.17 release with both of your bug reports, that would be immensely helpful to me and to all of us.

    In my personal opinion, the Quicken Mac team has lost touch with their customers, and are no longer committed to quality software releases anymore. I would truly love to be proven wrong on this opinion so I could stick with Quicken Mac, but for now, my frustration with Quicken Mac is through the roof. On a scale of 1 to 10, my frustration is at about a 75 right now.
  • DeProDePro Member ✭
    Since I've done this update, every time I type in the action (such as CC, Deposit, etc.) and then tab through to enter info, the Action entry disappears. If I go back and type it in, it then stays. Seems to be the tab function that erases it. Weird and very irritating.!
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