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QuickBooks update deletes your data, Intuit offers "waiting list" for fix
The latest update to Intuit's QuickBooks for Mac OS X should be avoided, as QuickBooks or the updater itself may delete all contents of the Desktop during the update process -- an egregious and inexcusable consequence. The user may also find himself unable to write files to the Desktop afterward. Here's the scenario:
A user sees that an automatic update to QuickBooks is available. Said user proceeds with the update, but receives an error message indicating that not enough disk space is available to install the update. Immediately after this error message is displayed, and the "OK" button clicked, the user finds that all contents of his Desktop have been deleted, with no conventional means of recovery.
Of course, if you have a recent backup, or are using Leopard's Time Machine, you can easily restore the contents of your Desktop. However, after restoring your Desktop contents (if you don't decide to delete QuickBooks entirely and write off Intuit for good), you need to stop QuickBooks from automatically updating again. This can be accomplished by launching the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities) and entering the following command:
- defaults write com.intuit.QuickBooks2007 QBCheckForUpdatesKey NO
(replace "QuickBooks2007" with "QuickBooks2006" if you ahve that version)
A borderline-ridiculous technical support document posted by Intuit now states:
"If you have lost files from your desktop and have not yet rebooted your computer. DO NOT reboot it until you speak with technical support. It may be possible to recover the missing files. There was a problem with the update for QuickBooks Pro MAC for version 2006 and 2007. The update displays the following message: 'there is not enough disk space to install.' Intuit has resolved the problem that caused this on the server."
adding:
"You may have experienced this issue but no data loss has occurred. Each time you attempted to update QuickBooks, a file was created.in the User folder. If you had attempted to update three times, you would have created three new files. Or if you had attempted to update four times, you would have four new files. These files were named in the following manner: Desktop1, Desktop12, Desktop123, Desktop1234, and so on. It is okay to delete these newly created files from the User folder."
Essentially, the company is claiming that the issue will no longer occur during the update process (is anyone really going to trust the Intuit auto-update mechanism again?) and that technical support representatives may be able to help you recover the files, though no online documentation for a fix is available. We're guessing the fix isn't paying for data recovery service.
A similarly silly post from "Intuit Employee" jfisher to the Intuit support forums states:
"[...] we're working now to develop the best methods for assisting customers in retrieving their files. Go to my new discussion and you'll find the link to a KB where you'll find another link (!) where you can get yourself on a list for callback and assessment of your situation. There are no further alerts necessary as the situation was resolved yesterday morning. This event will NOT recur on your QB 2006 on your other machines.
"I am not yet in a position to tell you whether the 2007 version will be made available. Suffice to say that your other 2006 versions will NOT suffer this 'same fate.' Go get on that list! Customers are being contacted on first-come, first-served basis."
i.e.: "We deleted your data, now put yourself on a list and we might call you back with a secret solution that might work."
You can get on the "waiting list" here. Wait a minute, did they say "callback?" Because that sign-up page only has a field for an email address.
Here is Intuit's only listed technical support line: 1-888-320-7276.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
Resources
Unfortunately, MYOB isn't any better, so no matter how horrible their code is, we still have to pay for it (in more ways than one).
I agree. Intuit and its alternatives are so bad as to be unusable and unreliable. Thats why I created all my own POS and inventory tools with FileMaker Pro. It does what I want the way I want. Intuits track record is so appalling I can't believe they are still in business!
"Then they morphed into this walled-off evil empire."
Don't sugar-coat it, jpc. : )
Worst part with Intuit is you are required to pay to ask questions when you have problems. Support seems to be the weakest link in their product line.
For years (and many updates), they promised total portability between Mac & PC. Well, my CPA & I found out that was not the case until the 2006 version, and even then there are some features conspicuously abscent from the Mac version.
As said, working with QuickBooks seems to be a Faustian pact we've been forced into, because of the lack of a better & more functional product.
Joe, if this works as you described it, you've done a real service to the Mac community -- unlike Intuit!
dave
I've been arguing for years that we need something like the Australian Trade Practices Act here in the US to prevent disclaimer of all warranties on software.
If a real Mac-focused company stepped up in either arena, then these two companies could dismiss their three or four Mac programmers and clear their cubicles for more Windows programmers to update, maintain and patch their Vista releases, which clearly needs to happen very regularly.
http://www.mgpacc.com/index.html
This isn't just a "Mac" issue either. My boss has been using Quicken for years (in Windows), and recently, his database got corrupt somehow in it. (EG. When he tries to enter a payment to his country club, it fills it in as a payment to the IRS instead.) Obviously, some pointers got mixed up. He had to pay $20 just to speak with someone at Intuit about the issue, and all they said was that "There's nothing we can do about it. We suggest you start a new account and re-enter your data manually." Uh, yeah... great idea there!
I'm not too fond of their handling of TurboTax either. If you try to get a head-start on doing your taxes in it, you risk submitting an incorrect return most of the time - because they keep pushing out updates, patches and fixes to the product all the way up to just before April 15th.!
http://cognito.co.nz/product.range.php?country_code=us
http://www.versiontracker.com/php/qs.php?mode=basic&action=search&str=MoneyWorks&srchArea=macosx&submit=Go
Ok so no one has a solution.
If someone could figure out what the program did with the files, (renamed, delete etc..) We could reverse engineer this. but 48 hours! that is nutz!
seth
Cognito's products are simply too ugly to inspire me to spend $600 on them. Tiny 8-bit icons mixed with others that have been upscaled and blurred to hide their jaggies mixed with others that have terrible alpha masks mixed with controls that scream "Windows" and bizarre terminology like "contra credits"... Good effort, but no thank you.
Next I tried just to just dragging the Quicken folder to the same External Firewire drive - same error! I COULD drag it to another internal partition and it would copy, but not to that External Firewire Drive.
Then certain other folders from my Applications folder refused to copy.
I threw everything at it - DiskWarrior, Disk Utility, Xupport, Deleted caches, ran Cron Scripts, rebooted into single user mode, tried another account, many hours later (and many restarts/shutdowns later). I finally shutdown, unplugged ALL firewire cables and power cable. removed the clock battery, pressed the motherboard reset button, reassembled and started up - now everything works again. Unfortunately, I don't know which of those last actions fixed it, but so far so good.
As always.. "Thanks Intuit". This upgrade has been nothing short of a "load in my pants" so far. Talk about BETA!
No apologies for Intuit, but your issue sounds like a problem related to your FireWire bus (an unfortunately common matter) rather than something caused by the QuickBooks Pro update. In which case, disconnecting the cables and resetting the power management unit ("motherboard reset button") probably did the trick.
It's an all too common problem that people don't store or back up their Quicken/QuickBooks files properly. Many times I've found them in clients' Quicken/QuickBooks application folder. Leaving them on the desktop is also not at all unusual. This particular mess is clearly the result of serious negligence on the part of Intuit and the equally serious negligence of people who use their desktops as a catch-all drawer. This case is something of a perfect storm of stupidity, in my opinion. Intuit is far from the only culpable party here. While it's reasonable to be angry with Intuit for triggering this crisis, it's typical for users to try to avoid responsibility for their own poor work habits in the process of venting their aggravation. As the saying goes, there are only two kinds of computer users - those who have lost data and those who will lose data. Sadly, most people don't learn to take the question of data security seriously until they've experienced a traumatic data loss.
Pardon my lack of sympathy, but I'd file this incident under the category of "live and learn."
---
Don't anthropomorphize computers.
They hate that.
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On December 19 2007 @ 06:29 PM PST
WhiteDog sniveled:
<< This particular mess is clearly the result of serious negligence on the part of Intuit and the equally serious negligence of people who use their desktops as a catch-all drawer. >>
I'm sorry, but I don't understand that.
Are you saying that it's alright for updates to assault and destroy the Desktop folder?
Who cares whether people overload their Desktop folder or not?
No update should immolate __any__ folder.
Even its own!
A user might have important documents or folders there as well.
Any update or upgrade that damages _any_ file or folder that it does not _unambiguously_ own is anathema.
Its perpetrators should be exterminated.
<< Pardon my lack of sympathy, but I'd file this incident under the category of "live and learn." >>
I'm sure your "lack of sympathy" would have been just as great if the update had eaten your Applications folder and your User's folder.
Though I agree that anyone who has ever heard of Intuit should "live and learn," and keep their computers at least 100 yards from Intuit's software.
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Intuit (and Adobe) wants to be Microsoft when they grow up. There is serious need for competition in Mac financial software.
- by John Sawyer December 20, 2007 1:11 AM PST
- Those messages from the Intuit employees have to be some of the most illiterate, incomprehensible collections of words I've seen in a while. I wouldn't be surprised if Intuit's code reads similarly, based on this problem and other astonishingly weird stuff they've been doing for years. I've been seeing data loss bugs in Intuit software ever since they first started publishing.
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