R52.33 - Unable to open data file on first try - then opens after pointing to file (edit75)

Quicken is unable to open data file

Getting a pop up on Windows 11 saying "Quicken is unable to open the data file" which is a .QDF format. I can open the file by going to File and clicking on a file ending with Quicken Data File; it does not show the file format. This seemed to appear after the last update.

[Edited - Removed Personal Information From Screenshot]

I am also having the issue that Quicken doesn't open the file when I click the icon on my taskbar. This started with the latest update. Also, I have to re-enter my master password every time I open the file from the file/open on the menu. I've had the Quicken data file in a onedrive folder for as many years as onedrive has been available. Why would that all of a sudden be the issue? I think the issue is with the Quicken program.

Laurel

I followed the instructions and Quicken opened as normal and I am using Window 10 not 11

You go against the recommendations for Quicken and then when what they are warning you about comes true and then you accuse them of not being proactive. It has always been their policy that opening up a data file that is in a network drive or cloud folder isn't supported.

https://www.quicken.com/support/can-i-share-my-quicken-file-between-multiple-computers-using-dropbox

Same experience as everyone else with one wrinkle: my datafile is NOT password protected. But, when the normal opening fails, I'm asked for a password to open it. Preferences still shows it not being password protected.

Frankly, this another one of Quicken Inc's failures to inform/document/notify users about their policies/recommendations. And I might add even after they have been informed about a conflict with what is standard on Windows.

Here is what happens if you try to open a data file on a network drive:

OK, I you see that they mention DropBox, cloud storage, Google Drive, … And OneDrive certainly falls into this same category. And there are "support web pages that state the same kind of things.

But if you open your data file that is on a "cloud storage" folder" you won't get this message. Why? Because it is fairly easy and standardized to just check (file is on a device that isn't a local drive), whereas cloud folders depending on the service are at actually still on the local drive, just at different paths and such. Not really a good excuse in my opinion. It can be checked even though it would have to be done for each of the main services. For sure Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive should be checked if they want to properly notify people.

Note the install says nothing about this. I find nothing in the Quicken Help on this except that it will also search the online help/support pages where if you search for OneDrive, Dropbox will be mentioned and in certain articles like "can I share" they will point this out.

It is something also that is mentioned over and over on this forum.

Still, this is very lacking for a policy that is meant for the user not to corrupt their data file.

And then we get to OneDrive over all the others. Neither Google Drive or DropBox create their "folders" in a way that Windows Documents folder is inside of them. Microsoft on the other hand decided that OneDrive will their backup solution and of course they wanted to backup Documents, Pictures, … so when Microsoft asks if you want backup you Documents, Pictures, … on OneDrive they actually change the path to these from like:

C:\Users\USER\Documents

To:

C:\Users\USER\OneDrive\Documents

Since the time when Microsoft changed that policy that data files shouldn't be with the program; Quicken has been setting the default to be Documents\Quicken. And this was done well before OneDrive ever existed.

Personally, I think somewhere like C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\Quicken might have been more appropriate since it is more a database than a "document", but it is what it is, and I guess it is where the average person expects it to be.

But OneDrive isn't that new, this conflict has been known for lots of years and yet Quicken Inc (and Intuit before them) have chosen to ignore it.

In a way though it is something that Quicken Inc can't win at. When a similar thing happened for Dropbox, a lot of them didn't say "I didn't know…", they said "I have been doing it for years…" In other words, you will notice that the dialog above allows them to continue to use on a network drive and such. And you can be sure that if it their data file gets corrupted, they will still complain about it.

The fundamental situation is that the heart of the Quicken Windows Desktop data file is a very old database and other files that have never been designed to have any kind of recovery to them. They expect a "perfect write" 100% of the time. There isn't any way of fixing that other than starting completely over.

@Jim_Harman Frankly I don't know exactly what the current problem with OneDrive is. I have tried testing on my machine with and without a password and not been able to get it to fail in any way, let alone corrupt a data file. That is the real big problem when you are talking about something that is most likely timing related.

But I can relate a bit more information than I did above.

Let me first state that when they first mentioned that they weren't going to support "cloud folders" I'm betting they had no idea how they worked. They seemed to lump them into "network drives" and said they wouldn't support them for the very same reasons. I think the problems that they/people found later were more that like an "oops, but it works out for what we said", kind of deal.

There is a world of difference between the problems with network drives and "cloud folders" at least how I see all of them implemented currently (or maybe before this last OneDrive change).

The basic problem with having the Quicken data file on a network drive is that "networks" can be unreliable. Quicken needs 100% reliability in the reading and writing to its data file.

I think at the beginning people thought "cloud folder" was a network folder. It isn't. It is a local folder, that "gets synced". So, its problems are different.

Let's first talk about locking the data file. I'm absolutely sure there isn't a call in Quicken to lock the data file. It is a normal process of just opening a data file (you have to work not to lock it). That lock gets unlocked automatically on the close of the file. Like you said, and I suggested in the past the best thing would have been to have Quicken lock the data file for the whole time, but they have never done that. Maybe because locking it outside of the open/close might have blocked the open. I don't know I have never tried that but given the "don't change unless you are forced to" attitude I see in things like this, I doubt it was even looked at.

At any rate, Quicken does open and close its data file for various reasons. For instance, for backup and for Validate and repair, move investment transactions, …

But if locks are properly obeyed this should never lead to a corrupted data file. It leads to exactly what is stated here:

https://www.quicken.com/support/error-when-opening-data-file-while-using-online-storage-service

Basically, Quicken will not be able to open the data file because another program has it locked while it is doing sync to its server. But at no time would Quicken close its data file in a state that is not recoverable when it opens it again.

So, I don't think this is a case of OneDrive getting quicker to jump in and lock the data file. It can certainly lead to Quicken not being able to open the data file which has been reported, but it shouldn't lead to a corrupted data file, which has also been reported.

In other words, the problem should have always been "temporary", once the sync to the server is done, the open should have worked.

So, what kinds of things can actually cause corrupt data files when using a "cloud folder"?

1. User makes changes on two different machines. This one is so "known" and pretty rare, that it is clearly not the problem.
2. The "sync" can ignore the lock. Yes, this is possible. In fact, Windows has a shadow copy function that can snapshot the whole drive at once. This is how restore points are done. If I remember correctly when OneDrive first came out that's what they were using, and it did cause problems. It could capture Quicken's data file in a bad state. But they stopped doing that pretty quickly and I haven't heard of such being the problem until maybe this one.
3. OneDrive like Dropbox, doesn't send the whole data file every time. They speed up the process by checking what has changed and only syncing enough information to make those changes to the copy on the server. Clearly if they don't do this 100% correctly bad things can happen.

@Jim_Harman OK I thought this was the thread where people mentioned having to restore from a backup to get it to work.

My version is:

So, we have the same version.

First observation. I copied my data file to Documents\Quicken and being that this is a first-time sync, did take a bit to be synced, so I decided to try something. I opened that data file in Quicken. If it was locked by OneDrive for the sync, I would expect Quicken to fail to open it, but it opened up without any problems.

That alone seems wrong. Maybe they are getting "crafty" and seeing that something opened it and pausing the sync, but I didn't see anything like that.

I do see that it isn't syncing while Quicken has it open.

OK, I just did a Validate & Repair. Note that what Quicken does is close the data file and then copy it to the VALIDATE folder and then do the validation, close it and reopen it.

Another unexpected thing happened. I see the syncing of the copy in the VALIDATE folder, but it still hasn't synced the original copy. It is actually behaving like Quicken is keeping the lock on for the whole time, and that Dropbox is honoring that lock. I have no direct way to see if the file is actually locked and when it released and such. All the methods I have seen for locked file these days seem to be centered on detecting if an application has it open and killing that application to free the lock.

Did a backup with the same result. Synced the backup on the Desktop but hasn't synced the original one in Documents\Quicken.

I closed the data file in Quicken, and within a couple of seconds it started the sync.

So, being the nice guy I am, I of course double clicked on the data file to open it in Quicken. It opened without any problem, and Dropbox immediately stopped the sync, and then posted this:

I don't know why this isn't what others are reporting, but right now mine is working exactly how you would want it to work.

I'm on Windows 11, with a pretty fast machine, and a really fast drive.

I decided to repeat the experiment with Dropbox.

Did the initial copy and Dropbox started the sync. Then I double clicked on the file to open it and got this:

Clearly, OneDrive has switched to a system where they don't lock the files that they are going to sync, whereas Dropbox hasn't changed and is using a lock.

Waited for the sync to finish and open the data file again.

For Validate & Repair, Dropbox started and didn't stop syncing during this process. Quicken was able to open the data file before the sync was finished with no problems. Maybe it the sync just was pretty fast.

Because when I tried the backup (which is backing up to the Desktop, which unlike OneDrive it wouldn't be syncing) I got this immediately:

I interpret that as a file that is not on the local PC. Just because onedrive synchs/backs up the file from your local PC to the cloud doesn't mean the file is stored on the cloud. No different than Windows 10 and up's backup methodology (file history). Even more ironic that Quicken touts the inclusion of a cloud backup service as a "feature", but then says not to store files where they can be backed up to the cloud?

I mean a car maker can include a disclaimer that they don't recommend starting or driving their car…. I put that akin to not supporting modern backup technologies with your software.

For me it seems to be all about timing. I'm in the habit of just pausing onedrive now, but before that, sometimes it would give no issue at all, sometimes just have to put the password in twice, sometimes have to do file-open. Seems to be related with where onedrive is in its scan/synch process.

If I close the file and wait for onedrive synch to complete, it will open right up again no issue. But if I wait a couple minutes after the synch completes, it has errors.

Quicken is definitely a Model T that they just slap a new coat of paint on every year (and at Maaco nonetheless). For god's sake it still doesn't take up the entire screen and you can click programs behind it around the edge, they haven't even gotten "maximize" right. This is what happens when private equity buys something unfortunately (not that it was doing all that great for the 10 years before PE bought it, but I never had anywhere near as many problems in the versions prior to the subscription model). Honestly, I still miss MS Money.

That being said, I know of a very old Access database and another very poorly designed SQL one that is about 15 years old, both running on onedrive, and neither having any issues since the update that broke Quicken. Haven't seen anything else broken, and I use it personally and it is also in use on my company laptop with lots of very old in house programs storing data in onedrive folders…..

So whether the onedrive update caused a new compatibility issue with Quicken or just exposed a poor design that has been there a long time, not sure, but it is something they need to fix as it is the way of the world now. Not sure if Onedrive has in fact gone to VSS/shadow copy but I've been using their backup services (Windows Server Backup, Windows 7 Backup, Windows 10 File History) which all use VSS for many years and again, never any issue with anything, in fact I find it far better than the old differential/incremental backup methodology at dealing with open files and definitely far better at ensuring consistency. It basically finally made the file-level "only changed bits" backups reliable while maintaining their efficiency.

That's news to me. When did we receive a notification about this? Been using Quicken since I had to load it on with floppies.

But I did get the emails about the new logo!!!!

Same problem. Started with last update.

Please fix it.