PNC bank upgrade affecting Quicken downloads?

What caused the change from Direct Connect to EWC+ in two of my accounts??

That I suspect was my fault. The very first recommendations from PNC and Quicken post PNC migration problems last month was to disconnect and reconnect all DC accounts. During that process two loan accounts were added to my Quicken using EWC+ as the default. Not only did I not realize I was adding two new accounts, but I had no idea they were set to use EWC+. I believe this process somehow corrupted or changed my vault (it was at this point my Bill Pay started to fail too). Deleting the two EWC+ accounts and reactivating one account for DC evidently re-wrote my vault correctly. As part of the reactivation, all my items downloaded, balances updated and Bill Pay payments were sent. The rep believed that this all happened because the PNC DC password was finally in the correct place.

Does Quicken support recommend the “copy file” option to fix PNC DC?

The rep was very clear that this option “might” end up being the best solution in certain cases. However, he said it should be the option of last resort….. after everything else has been tried. Using a copied file makes figuring out what the root cause of one’s problem was far harder. He said that Quicken level 2 support are the folks that usually make that call. However, several folks on this forum thread have used the “copy file” fix very successfully.

My suggestion, as an experienced Quicken user that is fairly technical, but who has never touched/played with things like DC or BillPay in 25 years ….. call Quicken support and let them walk you through the “fixes” discussed in this thread like I did. They will do a screen share with you and make sure everything that is done/changed won’t create more issues (like what I did). I have spoken to Quicken support 3 times in the last month and each time I got a knowledgeable person. In my case, a little “hand holding” was a good thing :-).

Updated all my transactions on the 14th, hasn't worked since.

Today's update!

Like @Boatnmaniac, I just got my second day of OSU downloads! 14 items over three accounts (1 checking and 2 savings). Payments and deposits. Balances also updated this AM. Yes, I am dancing on my desk!

For all of the people on this thread that are still having problems with PNC Direct Connect…. for whatever it is worth, I am convinced that had I not touched my accounts/connections and just waited for PNC (or their 3rd party company) to fix DC on their end, everything would have started to work on it's own last week when Quicken sent their email. Unfortunately, by the time I got the email I had reconnected to DC and accidently added two EWC+ accounts during the process. I believe that is what overwrote my Quicken password vault incorrectly (prior to the disconnect-reconnect BillPay had continued to work). Once the local Quicken vault didn't have my DC PIN correctly stored, it made no difference what PNC changed or fixed… I was NOT getting authenticated properly and there was zero chance for a download or for sending via BillPay. Honestly,I really have no idea if adding EWC+ accounts caused the vault to lose my DC PIN, but something did. Until @Boatnmaniac and others on this thread realized our vaults were "corrupted", neither Quicken or PNC had any idea that the vault had a problem (I spoke to both).

I second what @Boatnmaniac is recommending. Start with getting the vault correct! For folks that are relative novices like me, I can't recommend Quicken phone suport more highly for help.

My PNC DC connection is now working. I opened the Password Vault and noticed that I had the "'Not required' oddity for PNC (#3 below) even though when doing Add Account with PNC - Direct Connect and Advanced Options, I did not check the box for store password in PW. When testing after Add Account, I expected to have to enter the PNC PIN/pw but Quicken did not prompt me for it. That is when I saw 'Not required' in the PW.

I did a Validate & Repair (step 4 below) and that seems to have resolved the issue for me. When testing after the validation, I was prompted for the PIN/pw, the connection was successful and all expected transactions were downloaded (and balances match). I did get duplicate 'New' entries but deleted these manually.

From @Boatnmaniac below

Those who are still having PNC DC connection issues:

1. Backup your data file.
2. Try doing what @MichaelBarry did to see if that works.
3. If that doesn't work, check your PW Vault to see if it might be showing this "Not required" oddity for PNC.
4. If it does, you might want to try doing Validate & Repair to see if that fixes the PW Vault issue.
5. If that doesn't work for you, you might want to try doing what I did and make a Quicken Copy of your data file and try doing Add Account for PNC Bank - Direct Connect in that copied file.

This problem seems to be resolving unilaterally. I, too, successfully downloaded this morning several new transactions from multiple accounts including a couple of transfers that I had initiated between two different savings and checking accounts. Upcoming, scheduled bill payments appear to be getting received and processed by PNC. Telltale lightening bolt in the check number field is present. Thank heavens, this challenge appears to be over and behind us.

What does your password vault look like? Are you seeing "not required" or "password saved"? If you can't send BillPay future payments then I suspect you still have an authentication issue and the DC PIN is not where it needs to be. This was my situation.

I used Quicken Copy, then, as reported had to add all of my accounts again. But, except for a couple (formerly Web Connect accounts), which had a few missing transactions which I manually added), I seem to have the ability to update/download. Doing it this way, I seem to have lost some of my saved categories and "split" categories, but for now, everything seems to be working. I wish I had just tried the "vault" fix on my current account before using Quicken copy; maybe I would not have had to add all of my accounts again. But, I'm feeling a bit better now. I just need to figure out how to rename my "cpy" data file to so that when I back up my accounts, I will recognize the recent corrected accounts.

Thanks to all who contributed to the solutions.

That is awesome @thompson87!!

I think your success is further proof that the PNC DC issue is/was actually two separate issues. The first problem was the PNC migration that interrupted available downloads via DC for over two weeks. The second problem is/was a Quicken issue created by having many of us disconnect-reconnect. For whatever reason, we corrupted/changed the vault PIN status for DC by doing the disconnect-reconnects.

I hope Quicken now decides to incorporate into their program some vault error detection so that if we are not authenticated properly for DC, the user is notified by popup or error code….. instead of getting just the green “globe”.

It is interesting that it was a few very smart people on this forum that ID’d the vault problem!!

Spread the word!!

I find it amazing that almost always when Quicken has a major issue with the program, (particularly with downloading of transactions and connection methods) they release the update too early without testing properly their own program changes, their aggregator of financial data changes, (i.e. Yodlee which has download issues with about 100 Banks - including PNC), or their primary suppliers data, like PNC, Schwab, Fidelity changes - whether it is a connection change or something else. Instead, they rely on failures reported by customers until they try to fix it. Ultimately, in most cases it is the customers; through the forum, that find the fix -like the PNC issue and the password vault. This is unacceptable considering we are paying to fix their problems! I have been a user since 5.25 floppy disks and Quicken has always been the gold standard until the last 4 years. I think it is time for Mr. Dunn and Mr. Villanuvea to explain how they are going to fix this, or Mr. Dunn needs to hire a real CIO to fix these problems and make Quicken a leader again!

Thanks for calling this out and directing me to the fix. I followed the "Validate and Restore" path and my OneStep Update worked correctly. I had the "not needed" status on all of my accounts in the Password Vault, but after the Validate and Restore process completed, the pin vault was back to showing "yes" in my Password Stored column for PNC Direct Connect. Transactions downloaded successfully and I had about a month's worth of duplicate transactions to delete, but that was caused by the couple manual downloads I made from PNC website during the "outage". Thanks again for the assist and for the clear directions to resolve the issue @Boatnmaniac !

BTW, Quicken support gave me a nice tip that I would like to pass along. If it's already been discussed here, my bad.

For helping resolve duplicate transactions in your register he suggested adding an extra column to the register that shows the download ID for the downloaded items. In your account » Action Gear at the upper right» Register columns » add Download ID/Downloaded Reference.

After you do an OSU, delete the duplicate entries that didn't download via DC. They will be the register entries without a download number.

After getting comfortable that PNC DC is fixed for the long term…. I will probably deselect the download ID. For now it helped me.