MD+ downloads stopped working today?
Is this just me, or others? Another Plaid problem?
MD+ downloads don't work this morning. They worked fine yesterday. They seem to hang mid-download, and then it locks up the MD app later.
Click on an account
Choose Download Transactions
See message "Downloading (account name).... at the bottom
Nothing else happens. No "Downloaded X of X transactions" at the bottom status like usual. After 10 seconds the status area goes blank.
Then downloading any other account doesn't do anything. But basic use of MD is still working like normal, the app isn't fully locked up.
Then when quitting MD, I get "Finished saving data" dialog, then nothing. Doesn't fully quit, have to force quit. As if some process is still running that won't allow quitting.
This happens in two totally different MD data files.
Using v 2024.1(5118) on MacOS 14.6.1 (but the problem happened in 14.6.0 before I applied the upgrade). Yes, I've rebooted.
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61 Posted by Gene on 24 Aug, 2024 03:21 AM
FYI.
I called the bank, and they said Plaid should continue working. No changes have been made on their end. Also, I unenrolled and reenrolled into MD+. No impact.
62 Posted by dtd on 24 Aug, 2024 03:28 AM
It's not a mystery. Or maybe it is since one of my explanations got privatized for Gene, and I haven't gotten him to copy and paste it here... ;) That's somewhat facetious, but still.... @david.atherton, a lot of what you asked for is in that post.
Nothing about encryption with Plaid, but I'm pretty sure there are kb articles about that (which concerns people even more). Connection is also fairly known about aggregators in general, and as for delays, it falls into how Plaid connects both to banks and to MD, and how often they connect. My knowledge of "how long" or "how short" is mostly from my own experiences as well as what I've read about others experiences here.
63 Posted by dtd on 24 Aug, 2024 03:38 AM
@Gene - as I said in that other thread, as long as you are connecting (which you said you are, you are just getting no transactions), you are at the mercy of the "Plaid cycle" as to when they connect to your bank. That can take from 1-7 days [I changed 3 to 1 given everyone in this thread say it tends to be quicker now], and I did have my 'Plaid world record" of 10 days for one of my banks end of July. I was also tempted to complain, but who to? MD can't do anything but also complain, and Plaid ignores most everyone (with a tiny bit of deference to MD, because in Plaid's opinion they pay the bills for the service, which is why MD charges US - almost all of that fee goes to Plaid)
And as I also said, yes, it can be other things - the bank connection is down, so Plaid can't get info even if they try, or the resync date gets out of whack, and other things. which is why I said "wait until monday" and If you still don't get downloaded transactions, then it has been too long.
This is all given you connect at all, if you can't connect, that's a different bucket of fish.
64 Posted by dtd on 24 Aug, 2024 03:45 AM
Here's one by MD/IK on MD+ encryption and security.
https://infinitekind.com/blog/moneydance-plus-privacy-subscriptions
I don't find one by MD about how the MD+/Plaid "process" works, but it is generic to aggregators and why banks are abandoning OFX in favor of aggregators, and how much infighting is going on. Tons of info in Google on this; my experience is this generic knowledge combined with my own experience in MD, as well as the extensive time I spend here answering questions (even as just a user)
65 Posted by Gene on 24 Aug, 2024 03:46 AM
I get it. If Plaid made changes to increase that window, then it would no longer be helpful to me, and I may as well enter and mark my transactions by hand. I hope MD can help figure out where the issue is and pressure Plaid to fix it. If not, I won't need MD+.
66 Posted by dtd on 24 Aug, 2024 04:00 AM
Again, the long periods are an anomaly, that 10 day record for me was with USAA, and they are normally within 2. Why 10 that one time? Too many criteria to ever figure out, unless Plaid told me and they won't do that.
7? Usually Christmas/New Years.
So, usually 1-3. Most of the time. You have probably run into "something" with this particular bank (I mean, your other banks are still running, correct?)
Plaid doesn't make changes to "increase" the window - the nature of aggregators (i.e. they connect to your bank to get encrypted data for you, and then you connect to get that data) has inherent delays that sometimes through circumstance can be longer than normal.
Md cannot help figure out where the issue is and pressure Plaid to fix it. Most of these instances are "one-offs" and Plaid won't look into it, nor will MD... If you want to abandon MD+ because of one issue, one time, that is certainly your choice, even given this explanation. (I can't get my Kohl's card to connect, but no one has any interest in fixing it...)
Now, what THIS thread was about was not a one-off, and effort gets put into such things to fix such "across the board problems that affect many".
I'm just a user, so this message is based on my personal experiences, and I am not associated with MD/IK.
67 Posted by dtd on 24 Aug, 2024 04:03 AM
Has MD/IK offered to help fix your issue in the thread I posted in that got privatized?
If so I'd love to know what the fix is, as I don't know of a specific fix.
Maybe that's where the "call your bank" suggestion came from?
68 Posted by dwg on 24 Aug, 2024 04:05 AM
Plaid publish the API that software like Moneydance uses to retrieve transactions it is documented at:
https://plaid.com/docs/api/
69 Posted by Gene on 25 Aug, 2024 01:09 AM
Interestingly, things started work today, and I was able to have a week of transactions downloaded. I guess I will watch and see if that happens again. Maybe I need to learn to wait lionger compared to before.
70 Posted by dtd on 25 Aug, 2024 01:17 AM
Um, I think that's what I said might happen, so "Interestingly" seems odd.
"Wait until Monday" was my suggestion.
And you may or may not need to wait longer, though patience is a virtue. It depends on why your 6 day lag occurred... I had that 10 day bit, then it went back to my normal 2 for USAA...
71 Posted by david.atherton on 25 Aug, 2024 03:03 AM
Since MD chose Plaid for their MD+, surely it's incumbent upon them to respond more fully than they have. Maddy gave a response, but her answers weren't related to the specific problem that started this thread. MD should do a better explanatory job and stand behind their choices.
72 Posted by dtd on 25 Aug, 2024 03:14 AM
@david - again, the way that Plaid works is standard for aggregators. For them to reiterate how aggregators work would be nice, but not "incumbent".
To throw a bit more info into the fire, MD is quite dis-satisfied with Plaid and is looking for another provider (mostly because they wanted a worldwide solution, and Plaid wants a lot more to provide even just a U.K. solution).
If you want more fully, it's all available on the internet. Still, I think dwg might be putting together a "here's how Plaid/aggregators work" tonight. Would it be nice if Moneydance put together an overview of "here is how aggregators work"? Certainly it would be nice, but incumbent? Incumbent or obligatory is a pretty strong word.
73 Posted by dtd on 25 Aug, 2024 03:16 AM
And I'm not an apologist for IK/MD - there's a lot of things they could do better (including your incumbent request).
74 Posted by dwg on 25 Aug, 2024 05:49 AM
So how do aggregators work.
We might as well talk about the entire scope of “automated” downloads.
Former Quicken users would know about Web Connect. This pulls data from the institutions website, so internet banking websites, under user control.
Institutions need to implement certain capability into their website and pay Quicken for the privilege to do so, this is a proprietary solution.
Some years ago The Infinite Kind tried to see if they could come up with their own version of Web Connect that would be global without any requirements on the institutions side.
It proved to be too much work to set up, too much work to maintain, especially as there are infinite ways web sites can be set up. It was just not viable, in fact it would be like having a separate product – TIK would become an aggregator in a way.
For a solution like this to work it would have to be done from the industry side so there is an industry standard in place. The likelihood of this happening in the current environment I would say is zero.
Direct Connect (OFX) is a standard, devised by a consortium of organisations. It is not an all or nothing standard, institutions do not have to offer all its capabilities, so they do not have to provide Online Bill payment for example or even offer all accounts for downloads via OFX.
Institutions generally either implement a separate system with a feed to/from their production systems or contract a third party to provide the solution, again with a feed. Update frequency the institutions determine, for example with Bill pay they would do almost real time updates, for normal processed transactions it can be less frequent, it would be expected it would be at least daily after the institutions do their batch processing runs.
They also contain the size of the system needed by only holding a limited set of transactions, 60-90 days is typical.
With aggregators they use a couple of business models. As expected they provide you with automated transaction downloads, but some will also use the transaction data themselves by analysing the data in various ways and selling aggregated analysis.
The aggregators use various techniques to download transactions from the institutions including:
- Open Banking
- Financial Data Exchange (FDX)
- Open Financial Exchange (OFX)
- Screen scraping
With Open Banking and FDX access is Token controlled, with OFX and screen scraping username/password controlled.
The aggregators control the frequency of data acquisition, it is not done on demand, they do scheduled downloads and hold the data on their systems and you retrieve the information from there, the only exception is usually when you first connect an account, the system will often do an on demand download on this one occasion.
The aggregators also control what happens in the case their automated download fails, they may simply just leave it and let it run when it is next scheduled whenever that may be.
How quickly they respond to continuing problems with any institution downloads is also up to them. If the problem is at the institution’s end then it is up to the institution to resolve it.
There are multiple points of failure most of which are outside of Moneydance and The Infinite Kind’s control.
Software like Moneydance uses an API defined by the aggregator to retrieve data from the servers, they charge TIK for this and hence, with the way Plaid works, the data stream (encrypted) has to pass through a Moneydance provided server to facilitate the billing. The charges are passed through to you.
You do not have a personal account with Plaid, you are not their customer and they do not want you to be their customer, their customer is The Infinite Kind. This means that Plaid are removed from the end user the same as the institutions are removed from the end user.
75 Posted by david.atherton on 26 Aug, 2024 04:13 AM
dwg - Thank you for your extremely clear and helpful explanation. That answers a multitude of questions, though why Infinite Kind couldn't respond "in kind" I don't understand.