Can't download USAA transactions
This discussion is public.
Ben Clauss
I'm unable to connect to USAA credit card accounts and download transactions. This has always worked fine prior to today. My last successful download was on 1/7/21. I've tried upgrading to the latest version of moneydance, both regular and beta (3034), I've tried resetting the connections nothing has worked so far.
Showing page 7 out of 14. View the first page
Comments are currently closed for this discussion. You can start a new one.
181
Dan
on 06 Feb, 2021 11:33 PM
I'l spoke with USAA web support a couple of times trying to get information to create a custom link for the - New that Quicken is using. No luck.
I am feeling that this change has very little to do with USAA other than them being pressured by Quicken to change and break connections with their competition. It also is out of Moneydance's ability to get the connect details and code needed to work if Quicken is claiming it's proprietary. There is a reason I left Quicken so many years ago and still refuse to go back to them now.
182
Ben
on 07 Feb, 2021 01:20 AM
Having worked in IT for eons, I understand what USAA is doing. They're moving away from an antiquated authentication model where a username and password lets anyone (and any program) on the planet into USAA via the back door. From now on, if you (an app developer, i.e. Moneydance) want to access user data, you probably need to create a developer account with USAA, have an API token assigned to Moneydance, create an integration against the new API, and then release it to your users.
As an end user, i may seem simple. It might just look like a new connection type and you enter your username and password, but behind the scene's everything is FAR FAR more secure, and that's just the way it is.
I hate to say it, but Moneydance is a tiny fish in a giant sea, it's not like USAA is losing sleep over this.
183
Ben
on 07 Feb, 2021 01:24 AM
That's also why trying to get Moneydance to work by getting a new Quicken access ID, or whatever, from the USAA website will never work.
184
James Abrams
on 07 Feb, 2021 03:43 PM
So I have some good news for the devs of Moneydance. It looks like the authentication method USAA is using has been successfully engineered by one of the volunteers working on gnucash. Here is a link to what was discovered: https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2021-February/045690.html
Hopefully, the Moneydance devs frequent this forum so they see the fix.
185
Kevin Maskell
on 07 Feb, 2021 07:48 PM
I'm also a USAA customer and have been using Moneydance to download transactions flawlessly for about 13 years. Until last week. Strangely Moneydance isn't returning an error code when you try to download, it just doesn't do anything and moves on to the next account. Citi and Chase continue to work just fine.
Infinite Kind, please have someone look into the info provided by Mr. Abrams above. I stopped using Quicken all those years ago and I've loved using Moneydance. Please help your customers out.
Regards,
Kevin
186
dtd
on 07 Feb, 2021 10:03 PM
Moneydance does not return an error code when they cannot connect. Discover does not work anymore, but I've never disabled it, and it also does not generate an error code.
I created a thread a while back stating this, and I think it's on the list of things to do, but other items (like making USAA work again) take precedence.
just a user
187
dtd
on 07 Feb, 2021 10:07 PM
@Ben,
Everything you said about moving security systems is of course accurate. My issue with USAA is they did it without warning to customers and third parties who had been using the system for well over a decade.
That is simply terrible customer service. As you say, Moneydance is a small fish in the sea, but USAA obviously considers all of their customers in the same way. That's just wrong, even if moving to a new system is right.
188
hleofxquotes
on 07 Feb, 2021 11:12 PM
This looks promising. The only potential road block I see is how to obtain a valid CLIENTUID which according the poster, it might be account specific and he had gotten it from the Quicken OFX log file.
I think I understand almost all of the points mentioned in that post. I am happy to look deeper into and report back it but I don't have USAA account. If someone with USAA account willing to act as my partner (I will provide codes and instruction ...) to test, let me know hleofxquotes at gmail dot com.
189
drchandler1
on 08 Feb, 2021 01:34 PM
I used the information in the links of Post 184 and Post 188 to successfully download USAA transactions from their new OFX server using curl on the command line. I reused the CLIENTUID and the TRNUID from the link source. At least for now, they don't seem to be tied to a specific client or account.
190
sam.farwell
on 08 Feb, 2021 04:38 PM
Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread and helped diagnose the problem. I am another USAA banker left stranded. I am not savvy enough to figure this out for myself. Infinite Kind please send us some instructions! Thank you!
191
sam.farwell
on 08 Feb, 2021 05:42 PM
I called USAA and they confirmed the situation without offering any help but I think we all need to be squeaky wheels here- both to Infinite Kind and USAA. Someone will lose customers if nothing is done.
192
mgphl52
on 08 Feb, 2021 06:59 PM
Yep! I just got off the phone with USAA tech support. They are just as aggravated as we are! I did have to wait on hold an hour to get to tech support but the person I spoke with logged my complaint and said that he has been logging *all* of them. Hopefully the volume of squeaks is making it's way to the right people...
In the meantime, can some one explain how to capture a quicken log file? I have three different accounts I need to track and suspect that using 'curl' will require separate info for each account.
Thanks! -michael
193
hleofxquotes
on 08 Feb, 2021 07:30 PM
From message #189 (https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/discussions/online-banking/17962...), @drchandler1 mentioned that you can use "reused the CLIENTUID and the TRNUID from the link source". Other words, it appears that CLIENTUID and TRNUID are not tied to an account/authentication.
194
drchandler1
on 08 Feb, 2021 08:26 PM
More discussion here on the CLIENTUID:
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2021-February/045704.html
It seems you need to grab the CLIENTUID from the new OFX enrollement page URL. It is possible for a user to revoke their OFX credentials on the USAA website. If the original poster revoked his OFX credentials, then I imagine it would break the CLIENTUID he posted. I'm surprised that his works at all with different logon credentials.
195
andrew
on 08 Feb, 2021 08:52 PM
I called USAA. They told me to look for a "USAA.... NEW" option, which of course isn't present. After some time on hold she confirmed that IT is working on a solution. I'm guessing this has to be addressed collaboratively, from USAA and Moneydance together, but can't be sure. This really makes a big impact for usability, so I hope it's sorted out soon!
196
dtd
on 09 Feb, 2021 12:48 AM
@drchandler - congratulations on using curl to download ofx from USAA.
My question - is it still working?
If so, could you contact me - so we can compare notes?
Actually, even if not so, would love to debrief.
I'm trying to do the same as you did, and think I have it right, but no love.
Have it right means proper login/password/clientuid and curl setup.
197
dtd
on 09 Feb, 2021 12:57 AM
@sam.farwell - I am aware that IK is looking into this. Sean does not like to comment until he has a solution. And they are not there yet.
@mgphl52 - I'd hold off on log files and using curl if you are not familiar with it. curl, ultimately, is a tool to figure all this issue out, and you don't need to spend a lot of time learning it to get one ofx download. Or I guess three. Schwab's actions took six weeks to get a (temporary) solution, moneydance is on week two with USAA.
just a user, not affiliated with moneydance.
198
mgphl52
on 09 Feb, 2021 01:44 AM
@dtd - Thanks for your input. I have been able to acquire my personal access ID & PIN and used curl to validate that the ID/PIN connected to all of my accounts. At this point, I believe it is up to InfiniteKind to adjust their interface to USAA and the 'Setup Setup Online Banking' procedure for USAA. This should not take a long time... but Moneydance users will need to get credentials from USAA for access - but there are links at USAA to acquire them.
I truly hope to hear good news soon!!!
199
mag_djg
on 09 Feb, 2021 01:54 AM
This month, USAA stopped downloading to Moneydance. I hope there is a fix soon. I can download my USAA activity as a csv file. I hope I do not need to write a program to import csv into Moneydance. Currently, I copy and paste from csv to Moneydance (what a pain).
Long time Moneydance user. Started using Moneydance when it was a free program. I still have a Moneydance cd that I purchased from CompUSA.
200
dtd
on 09 Feb, 2021 02:26 AM
mgphl52 - when did you do the curl verification today?. I have been unable to make it work effective this afternoon - would love to discuss.
i assume you got an ofx download for your three accounts?
Can you verify it works this evening? (Let's move this to email)
201
James Abrams
on 09 Feb, 2021 02:24 PM
By the way, a Python 3.X script called ofxtools has now been configured to work with USAA's latest setup. Also, on an unrelated note, thanks to one of the USAA reps (Jason), he has provided a link you can access to pull your own accessID, PIN, as well as extract the clientID from the URL. Once you login to USAA, browse to https://www.usaa.com/accessid in the URL, you will find your clientID (I haven't checked to see if this is unique or not). It will also generate the login and PIN. In the forum, he asks the member to use that to access Moneydance but I don't believe that the software has yet been configured to connect using the latest authentication method. At this point, I think we need to start asking the devs to make the necessary changes as the authentication process has been documented.
202
mgphl52
on 09 Feb, 2021 06:57 PM
Well... I just read through some of the doc on ofxtools and quickly decided to wait (somewhat patiently) for the Moneydance gurus to get this working. While waiting, I'll relieve my stress with the throttle on my Harley... :)
203
doug brown
on 09 Feb, 2021 07:17 PM
I just got a call from USAA today while I was out on my run. They said a subject matter expert would be getting in touch with me later. I'm not certain it was about this particular issue, but it's the only one I've called about recently, so maybe?
204
taser8
on 09 Feb, 2021 10:04 PM
Doug, when I made my initial call to USAA tech support I expressed my unhappiness and the tech offered to escalate my issue to a specialist. The specialist called a couple days later and said, "I understand you're having issues with Quicken". When I informed her that no, I don't use Quicken and WON'T use Quicken, that my problem was with Moneydance, she just replied, "Well, we don't support that.". So...don't get your hopes up.
205
jay
on 09 Feb, 2021 10:39 PM
This seems to be the same issue that was happening with Schwab accounts a few months back. I think IK had to set up an authentication server to route traffic to Schwab. I believe Sean was the person who handled.
206
kenny
on 09 Feb, 2021 11:23 PM
James -
I browsed to
https://www.usaa.com/accessidand did NOT find my clientID. All I found was a page where I could tell USAA to allow Quicken access to my USAA information. Not what I want to do so I refused to click Allow.I'm trying to be patient. Downloading and importing CSV files is a pain.
I'll never go tack to Quicken... and I've been a USAA member for over forty years so, as much as this irritates me, will probably not get rid of them. But something will have to give so I'm making no promises!
207
dtd
on 10 Feb, 2021 12:18 AM
@William - as has been true in the past decade or more, Quicken is the only finance program that exists for many banks. So, long long ago, Direct Connect was working "for Quicken", and the other finance programs figured out what Quicken was getting and did it as well.
We are at that point again. The reason that url goes to Quicken is that Quicken is again all that exists.
So - given you don't use Quicken, just because you give Quicken permission doesn't mean much if you never use the program.
SO - when you enter the url above, you are redirected to a different url. It's long, but at some point it says clientid=VERY LONG STRING. It has 8-4-4-4-12 letters and numbers. copy it all and save it. That's your clientuid.
Then sigh, give permission. As long as you never use quicken, all you are getting is a userid/password combination. Write those down as well.
Then - hopefully soon, Moneydance will issue a built in way to use those pieces of information to make usaa work again.
just a user, hope that helps. I have also been a USAA member for over 40 years. No matter what happens, of course I will keep my 35 year (actually longer) credit card for my fico score, but I may use it much less.
208
kenny
on 10 Feb, 2021 01:02 PM
@dtd - thanks. I "assumed" it might lead to something like that. However, I have been burned way too many times in the past when acting off of assumptions.
I am going to ask the stupid / lazy question. The talk here of using curl with his clientid, et al... is this just essentially confirming that this issue is solvable, or can this information be used today to download my USAA transactions into MD without writing my own python script?
209
Kathy
on 10 Feb, 2021 02:30 PM
USAA is not working on my computer either. Please keep me informed!
210
hleofxquotes
on 10 Feb, 2021 05:18 PM
You can use curl to actually download the USAA OFX file. But result so far is mixed: some reported success, others did not.
From what I can gather so far, the USAA changes are fairly straight-forward
So it should not be hard to get the current tool/code to adapt to those changes.
Short-term, if you are OK with downloading CSV, you can use my csv2ofx converter to convert the USAA csv to ofx which you can then import into MD.
http://bit.ly/3cPajDZ