Quicken 2000: Corrupt Price History

[David Morgenlender]

Lately, I've run into a problem with Quicken 2000's Price History. When I
download online quotes, I'll notice an error indication on a few stocks. When I
look at the Price History of one of these stocks, I'll see duplicate & out of
order entries; e.g. one stock has these entries:

8/29
8/28
8/27
8/26
8/25
8/29
8/21
8/22
8/20

BTW, I haven't been using manual entries on these stocks; I do use manual
entries for securities not included in online pricing, and very rarely if I see
an obvious pricing error.

Any idea what's going on, and how to fix it?

=======================================================
Dave Morgenlender
e-mail: dmorgen@alum.mit.edu
=======================================================

[John Pollard]

David Morgenlender wrote: Lately, I've run into a problem with Quicken 2000's Price
History. When I download online quotes, I'll notice an error indication
on a few stocks.

What's an "error indication"?
When I look at the Price History of one of these stocks, I'll see duplicate & out of order entries; e.g. one
stock has these entries: 8/29 8/28 8/27 8/26 8/25 8/29 8/21 8/22 8/20

When you notice this problem is it when you have only done a
current quote download, or are you downloading some investment
transactions in the same download? And do any of those
investment transactions pertain to (include the price of) the
securities whose prices are out of sequence? Are the securities
all held at a single financial institution?
BTW, I haven't been using manual entries on these stocks; I
do use manual entries for securities not included in online pricing,
and very rarely if I see an obvious pricing error. Any idea what's going on, and how to fix it?

No idea what's going on or how to "fix" it (that is, how to keep
it from happening).

Other than the fact of the incorrect sequence itself, have you
noticed any other ill-effects from the fact that the prices are
out of sequence?

Considering only how to get your price history into sequence by
date:

You could delete, then reenter, the out of sequence prices.

You can dump your entire history and start it over by deleting
(or renaming) your QDATA.QPH file, then downloading price
history. Yes, you will lose any manual prices that were either
not available online or differed from the online price or which
fell in between the defined increments for historical prices.
(You will not lose your cost basis prices).

If you have a backup that has the prices correct, you could just
replace your current QDATA.QPH file with the one from the
backup, downloading price history only back to the date of the
backup, losing fewer prices.

--
John Pollard
j underscore pollard at mindspring dot com
Please reply to newsgroup

[David Morgenlender]

John,
David Morgenlender wrote: Lately, I've run into a problem with Quicken 2000's PriceHistory. When I download online quotes, I'll notice an error indicationon a few stocks.What's an "error indication"?

An "e" is displayed in the price column.

When I look at the Price History of one of these stocks, I'll see duplicate & out of order entries; e.g. onestock has these entries: 8/29 8/28 8/27 8/26 8/25 8/29 8/21 8/22 8/20When you notice this problem is it when you have only done acurrent quote download, or are you downloading some investmenttransactions in the same download?

I don't know for sure when the problem started. But once it starts, so far, it
always seems to be there. I typically do a current quote download every week or
so; every 3-4 weeks I'll do a transaction download in the same downloading
session.

And do any of thoseinvestment transactions pertain to (include the price of) thesecurities whose prices are out of sequence?

Perhaps in some cases. But I know at least one case where that's unlikely.

Are the securitiesall held at a single financial institution?

Yes.

Other than the fact of the incorrect sequence itself, have younoticed any other ill-effects from the fact that the prices areout of sequence?

No, other than the "e" problem. But, I haven't tried much yet. I'm trying to
minimize use of the data files until I have an idea what's going on.

Considering only how to get your price history into sequence bydate:You could delete, then reenter, the out of sequence prices.

That's probably what I'll end up doing. Hopefully, there's no corruption to the
file structure.

You can dump your entire history and start it over by deleting(or renaming) your QDATA.QPH file, then downloading pricehistory. Yes, you will lose any manual prices that were eithernot available online or differed from the online price or whichfell in between the defined increments for historical prices.(You will not lose your cost basis prices).If you have a backup that has the prices correct, you could justreplace your current QDATA.QPH file with the one from thebackup, downloading price history only back to the date of thebackup, losing fewer prices.

There's no QDATA.QPH file; I believe QPH files started in a later version of
Quicken. I'm not sure if there's a comparable file in this version. I believe
the QDF file contains the stock prices; but I don't know if it contains
anything else.


Thanks for your help!

=======================================================
Dave Morgenlender
e-mail: dmorgen@alum.mit.edu
=======================================================

[John Pollard]

David Morgenlender wrote: What's an "error indication"? An "e" is displayed in the price column.

I'm pretty sure that is not an error indicator, but an
"estimated" indicator; that is, when Quicken does not have a
price dated the same as the "As of" date in portfolio view, it
treats the price as an estimate" and puts an "e" (an "est" in
2001 and 2002) in the price column (along with the estimated
price).

In your case, I think it may be working as something like an
error indicator though: if the security is scheduled to get a
current quote, but does not, Quicken will treat its price as an
estimate, but it may be an indirect indicator of a problem.

Are the securities all held at a single financial institution? Yes.

I should have asked my question a bit differently; I was trying
to see if the problem might be caused by the fi. Are you saying
that all your securities are held at just one fi, or do you hold
securities at multiple fi's but only the securities at one fi
are having problems. (This is possibly a moot question by now
since you did say that you saw problems even when downloading
only prices with no investment transactions).

Who is the fi? And do you "direct download" investment
transactions or import a QIF file?
Considering only how to get your price history into sequence
by date: You could delete, then reenter, the out of sequence prices. That's probably what I'll end up doing. Hopefully, there's no corruption to the file structure.

I realize this is a long shot, but you might look thru your
investment transactions for one or more bad dates. When found
in the past, they would usually appear in transactions near the
beginning of the register. (You could possibly use an
Investment transaction report sorted by date to help the
search). I think it is still possible that you got some bad
data from the fi - I have not heard of anyone getting downloaded
prices out of sequence before.

If your problem securities are all in one Quicken account and
there is no separate price history file, it could be that some
corruption in a Q transaction could affect the sequence of
prices.
There's no QDATA.QPH file; I believe QPH files started in a
later version of Quicken. I'm not sure if there's a comparable file
in this version. I believe the QDF file contains the stock
prices; but I don't know if it contains anything else.

Sorry, it's been a while since I used Q2000, forgot the QPH file
didn't start until Q2001. As far as I know, there is no
comparable file for Q2000.

Also sorry I do not have any better ideas.

--
John Pollard
j underscore pollard at mindspring dot com
Please reply to newsgroup

[David Morgenlender]

John,
David Morgenlender wrote: What's an "error indication"? An "e" is displayed in the price column.I'm pretty sure that is not an error indicator, but an"estimated" indicator; that is, when Quicken does not have aprice dated the same as the "As of" date in portfolio view, ittreats the price as an estimate" and puts an "e" (an "est" in2001 and 2002) in the price column (along with the estimatedprice).In your case, I think it may be working as something like anerror indicator though: if the security is scheduled to get acurrent quote, but does not, Quicken will treat its price as anestimate, but it may be an indirect indicator of a problem.


Come to think of it, I think you're correct.

I should have asked my question a bit differently; I was tryingto see if the problem might be caused by the fi. Are you sayingthat all your securities are held at just one fi, or do you holdsecurities at multiple fi's but only the securities at one fiare having problems. (This is possibly a moot question by nowsince you did say that you saw problems even when downloadingonly prices with no investment transactions).

Almost all securities are held by a single fi. There are a few others in
reinvestment plans, etc. However, I only download transactions from a single
fi, Schwab.

I just looked at the data in more detail. The problem occurs for stocks both in
Schwab & others, but only those which are set to be priced online. Most stocks
show the problems ... and always for the same dates (although each stock does
not necessarily have a price item for all the problematic dates).

Who is the fi? And do you "direct download" investmenttransactions or import a QIF file?

Direct Download.

I realize this is a long shot, but you might look thru yourinvestment transactions for one or more bad dates. When foundin the past, they would usually appear in transactions near thebeginning of the register. (You could possibly use anInvestment transaction report sorted by date to help thesearch). I think it is still possible that you got some baddata from the fi - I have not heard of anyone getting downloadedprices out of sequence before.

I'll try to find those kinds of transactions.

Also sorry I do not have any better ideas.

Thanks for your help though!

=======================================================
Dave Morgenlender
e-mail: dmorgen@alum.mit.edu
=======================================================

[David Morgenlender]

It seems like I solved the problem ... hopefully it will stay that way!

I couldn't find any strange transactions for the accounts with problems.

I did a Validate, which reported no errors, but did not fix the problem.

To fix the problem, I deleted all prices back through the first problem price.
Then I loaded historical prices.

But some strange things happened when I deleted the prices ... sometimes I could
simply delete a bad price (date out of order), but sometimes nothing would
happen ... other times the wrong item would be deleted (I think the item above
or below the item with the bad price). So, I ended up finding what worked ...
I'd delete multiple items at once above the bad item ... then I could delete the
bad item.

This certainly looks like database corruption ... hopefully, there are no
problems lurking to bite me in the future!

Thanks for your help!


David Morgenlender <dmorgen@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
Lately, I've run into a problem with Quicken 2000's Price History. When Idownload online quotes, I'll notice an error indication on a few stocks. When Ilook at the Price History of one of these stocks, I'll see duplicate & out oforder entries; e.g. one stock has these entries: 8/29 8/28 8/27 8/26 8/25 8/29 8/21 8/22 8/20BTW, I haven't been using manual entries on these stocks; I do use manualentries for securities not included in online pricing, and very rarely if I seean obvious pricing error.Any idea what's going on, and how to fix it?

=======================================================
Dave Morgenlender
e-mail: dmorgen@alum.mit.edu
=======================================================

[David Morgenlender]

Just when I thought I had the problem solved, I did a price update (One Step
Update) today. There were MANY stocks showing the original price history
problem ... yesterday (9/26) was the last day with prices (correct), but the
entry had the same value as 9/25 & it was in the wrong date position.

After awhile of just sitting there, Quicken caused an exception. When I
restarted Quicken, the erroneous stock price histories were gone ... Quicken
probably never saved the data to disk. So I tried doing an update price history
of just 1 stock (BORL). This time the prices were all updated except for 9/26
which had no entry. Then after sitting around awhile, Quicken died again. This
time I paid attention to details. This crash is repeatable, although the wait
time can vary, and the specific error details vary. Here are 2 crashes I
captured:


QW caused an invalid page fault in
module KERNEL32.DLL at 017f:bff9db61.
Registers:
EAX=c00309c4 CS=017f EIP=bff9db61 EFLGS=00010212
EBX=05c8ffbc SS=0187 ESP=05b8ff34 EBP=05b901d0
ECX=00000000 DS=0187 ESI=00000000 FS=a0df
EDX=bff76855 ES=0187 EDI=bff79050 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
53 8b 15 e4 9c fc bf 56 89 4d e4 57 89 4d dc 89
Stack dump:


QW caused an invalid page fault in
module QWWIN.DLL at 017f:00d9682a.
Registers:
EAX=0583fd6c CS=017f EIP=00d9682a EFLGS=00010206
EBX=0583fdc2 SS=0187 ESP=0583fcbc EBP=0583fcc4
ECX=055100a0 DS=0187 ESI=00008de6 FS=a367
EDX=0001d3a4 ES=0187 EDI=0583fd78 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 49 70 89 08 c7 45 f8 01 00 00 00 8b 45 f8 c9
Stack dump:
00000000 055100a0 0583fd70 00574dd1 000001e0 0583fd6c 0583fd78 00008de6
00000020 2bc60100 2bc604fc a367178f 00380000 8d12ffff 178f9f4a 000404fc


Any idea what's going on & how to fix it?

Does Quicken 2000 have a limit for price history entries?

=======================================================
Dave Morgenlender
e-mail: dmorgen@alum.mit.edu
=======================================================