Syncing corrupting my file

Drewbacca
Drewbacca Member ✭✭
Recently when I refreshed all of my accounts my balances became completely screwed up. The main issue that accounts at my primary bank, First Horizon, seem to be mixing up transfers between each other. Transfers from one account are listed as coming from a different one. A couple of my accounts have the right balance, but the accounts the transfers are coming from are tens of thousands of dollars off. I've gone through this, line-by-line twice, each time taking nearly an entire day. However, every time I refresh, it completely changes all of my reconciled transactions back to the corrupted ones. I've tried resetting the Quicken Cloud account, but even that changes all of the transactions back. Many of the transfers, instead of saying "Transfer from _____ Checking to _____ Savings," will have a different transaction name, like the name of my electric company.

One of my accounts did something similar with a single transaction a couple weeks ago, and every day I had to go back in and correct the transfer. I was finally able to get it fixed by deleting the transaction completely and entering it in manually on my own. I would do that here, but there are thousands of transfers I'd have to do that for. Does anyone have any advise on how to break this cycle? I'm using Quicken for Mac Deluxe, Version 6.5.1 on a new iMac with macOS Monterey 12.0.1.

Best Answer

  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Answer ✓
    Do you have the Sync switch turned on in Preferences > Mobile, Web and Alerts? This is the kind of thing that I've seen happen when that is turned on. And it is the reason I will never have and never will turn on Sync.

    If this may be the cause, then you should turn off the Sync switch. Then, after making sure your file is correct, go to Preferences > Connected Services and Reset the cloud account. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s

Answers

  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Answer ✓
    Do you have the Sync switch turned on in Preferences > Mobile, Web and Alerts? This is the kind of thing that I've seen happen when that is turned on. And it is the reason I will never have and never will turn on Sync.

    If this may be the cause, then you should turn off the Sync switch. Then, after making sure your file is correct, go to Preferences > Connected Services and Reset the cloud account. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • Drewbacca
    Drewbacca Member ✭✭
    I thought about this too. Unfortunately, since I reset my Quicken Cloud, I can't even go into the Connected Services part to disable Sync. When I click on it, it says I need to set up a new Cloud account. When I do that, all the bad transactions come back. I can literally change one of them, hit "refresh," and it comes right back. I can't disable the Sync unless I have a Cloud account, but I can't do the Cloud account because it destroys about 6 hours worth of work. Any ideas?
  • Drewbacca
    Drewbacca Member ✭✭
    > @RickO said:
    > Do you have the Sync switch turned on in Preferences > Mobile, Web and Alerts? This is the kind of thing that I've seen happen when that is turned on. And it is the reason I will never have and never will turn on Sync.
    >
    > If this may be the cause, then you should turn off the Sync switch. Then, after making sure your file is correct, go to Preferences > Connected Services and Reset the cloud account. 

    Ok, I just bit the bullet and synced it all, screwing up my transactions again. However, I was then able to turn off Sync. I tried changing a transaction and then refreshed my account... and it didn't change back. So, that was the problem. It's strange. I've been using Quicken since 2015 and have always had Sync turned on. I rarely sign in online or use the app. This is the FIRST time this has happened.
  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    @Drewbacca If you don't really use the mobile app or web interface, I'd suggest leaving Sync turned off. It seems like many problems which get reported in this forum, if they aren't about connectivity problems with financial institutions, revolve around sync problems. Having read all these problems and some real horror stories, I never turn sync on. It would be helpful form time to time for me to be able to access my Quicken data from a web browser, but for me it's not important enough to risk corruption of my carefully curated data. I'm sure there are people who use the Quicken Cloud services without problems; I'm just offering my personal perspective.
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • Drewbacca
    Drewbacca Member ✭✭
    I don't plan to use it anymore, but I'm still hoping to find a way to turn it off without having to reset the cloud first. I don't seem to be able to do that though.
  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    @Drewbacca Since I don't use Sync, I can't replicate your situation. What happens if you disconnect your Mac from the Internet (e.g. run off WiFi or pull your Ethernet cable), then launch Quicken? Will it open your file at all? I'm wondering if you can do that to get to the Preferences screen to turn off Sync, then quit Quicken, restore your Internet access, and relaunch Quicken. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • Drewbacca
    Drewbacca Member ✭✭
    No, you can't open the Web Services menu to turn off Sync without a connection. My file will get corrupted, so I restore from my accurate back-up, but that disables my Cloud account, which is apparently where the Sync preference is stored. When I connect it to a Cloud, it turns Sync on. If I let it fully sync and corrupt the file, I'll turn Sync off, but when I restore the file from the back-up, it's back on again.
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Just want to clarify something: When you go to Preferences > Connected Services, do you see a cloud account listed in the Cloud Account section in the middle. Can you click the Reset button there? This will overwrite all the cloud data with the info in your currently open file. You should only do this when you have open your "corrected" file. 

    If the answer to that is no, can you click the See All Cloud Accounts button? If so, what do you see when that opens?
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • Drewbacca
    Drewbacca Member ✭✭
    I tried that. The problem is if you reset it, it refreshes and syncs the file as soon as finishes setting up the new Cloud account. I've tried resetting it, and starting a whole new one after restoring from back-up. The Sync being toggled to "On" is not changeable with that file. I can't turn it to "Off" without setting up a Cloud account, and I can't set up an account without it automatically Syncing after it finishes. I'm stuck. I also tried toggling it off with a corrupted file, saving it to the Cloud, and then restoring from a back-up to the same name, but that just creates a new Cloud account that changes Sync back to "On" when it finishes. Unless someone can figure out how to turn Sync off without being connected (you can't when not connected to the internet), then I'm stuck. At least I tried changing the entries with my corrupted file after turning Sync off, and they stayed corrected when I refreshed my account. So the Sync is definitely the issue here.

    The root of my problem is that I had my Quicken file stored on my iCloud, so I could use it on my laptop at work or my desktop at home. I was always very careful to make back-ups and close them completely before changing to the other device. However, when this started, my laptop had for some reason not been updating my iCloud files, so the two files got desynced and led to the corruption. Now I'm stuck with those ramifications and can't fix it easily without the Sync issue being addressed. I'm likely just going to have to fix the corrupted file again and start using Quicken on a single device from now on.
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Yup, this is one reason we strongly recommend not storing a Quicken file on any cloud service. No matter how careful you are, you are setting yourself up for an "adverse event".
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • Drewbacca
    Drewbacca Member ✭✭
    Right. I realize that mistake but figured the backups would be ok. Unfortunately, the Sync feature is not allowing me to fix it, so I was hoping someone here would know how to get around it.
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