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Intuit typically releases an update like this as a manual update first, where you have to go to the Intuit support site and manually download a patch file. A week later, the update switches to an automatic update, where it is pushed out to users automatically if they have enabled this feature. I usually recommend waiting to update until we see if there are errors that the manual updaters report. Unfortunately, this time, it was not apparent that there were problems until the first wave of automatic updates were installed.
In any release, we expect that some people will see problems because there are so many variables involved. Different operating systems, different versions that you are updating from, different levels of “health” of the database being installed, different versions of Microsoft Office installed, and many variables in the “Windows registry” that can affect things. I tend to avoid writing about these kinds of bugs unless I can see them in my test system, and we see that they are widespread.
There are a number of reports of problems in the R6 update. Here are the ones I am seeing most commonly reported, and that I have run into myself on one of my test systems. I am just sorry that these did not show up before the automatic update phase.
QuickBooks has Stopped Working
Ouch. In some cases people are seeing an error “QuickBooks has stopped working” when you open your company file. I am not seeing this happen consistently. Of three installations, only one shows this problem. Intuit acknowledges that this is happening in KB article SLN86691. Intuit lists three steps to resolve the problem:
- Reboot your computer.
- If you are using an Intuit payroll product, rename the Paysub.ini file and download your payroll update again (the KB article provides a batch file to help with the renaming).
- Perform a “clean install” of 2014 R6 if the first two steps do not work.
My one test system that failed had a test payroll subscription, the ones that did not fail did not. The Intuit process seems to have resolved the problem for me.
Names Truncated in Reports
Here’s my Unpaid Bills Detail Report when viewed on screen (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Unpaid Bills Detail – On Screen and Correct
Figure 2 is the same report printed; note the truncation of the vendor name. Just one of them is truncated in this case, but some people report that it is more widespread.
Figure 2: Unpaid Bills Detail – Error
This problem may be showing up in other reports, such as the Unbilled Time report, perhaps in the Inventory Stock Status by Item report.
I missed this early on because I was always looking at the screen, where it shows correctly.
QBSDK-Based Add-ons Fail
I develop some add-on products that work with QuickBooks, and I knew there was a problem when I started getting a number of tech support calls for my products later in the day when the automatic update was released. If you are running Windows XP then you will get one of several odd errors if you are using an add-on product that uses the QBSDK (which most apps are using for QuickBooks on Windows).
In some cases you may get a Windows error dialog like the one shown in Figure 3:
Figure 3: Add-on Error
In other cases, your add-on application may generate an error about a “missing component.” The problem is that every add-on product will probably show you a different error, as they try to interpret what QuickBooks is telling them. This will happen when the add-on tries to connect to the QuickBooks database.
I do have a fix for this one, but you have to be cautious. If you can find an R5 installation, you can locate the QBXMLRP2.dll file (usually in C:\Program Files\Common File\Intuit\QuickBooks, or C:\Program Files (x86)\Common File\Intuit\QuickBooks on 64-bit systems) and copy that over to your R6 installation; that seems to fix the problem. I have tested this on my system and it resolves that problem, but I am not sure what side effects it will cause. So far I have not seen any problems, but note that this might remove the SDK bug fixes that were included in the 2014 R6 update.
The good DLL has a file version of 13.0.24.4005, the bad one has a file version of 13.0.24.4006 (Figure 4).
Figure 4: 2014 R5 DLL
There may be other problems, but I have not been able to duplicate any of those that I see reported.
- If you are running on Windows XP and using an add-on, consider trying this fix. However, a better answer is that you should not be running on Windows XP due to the security issues and loss of PCI compliance.
- If you are running on any 2014 version earlier than R6, you might want to wait on updating until we see what the full extent of the problem is.
- If you have already moved to 2014 R6, please let Intuit know about the problems using the Send Feedback Online option in your Help menu. The more they hear about this, the faster they should respond.
I have no idea if they are working on a fix for any of these at this time.