tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:/discussions/problems/54751-reconciled-balances-change-after-dropbox-folder-syncInfinite Kind: Discussion 2019-10-13T21:40:23Ztag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-24T20:40:53Z2019-06-24T20:40:53ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>I am not support staff, just a user.</p>
<p>Option 1<br>
The result of re-setting syncing is that the secondary computer will then reflect the data in the primary computer, which if I am reading you correctly is not the result you want.</p>
<p>Option 2<br>
If your secondary computer data set is correct you should perform an EXPORT BACKUP of your secondary data set. You are correct a secondary data set is not exactly the same as a primary data set. You can’t change the syncing method on a secondary data set. However, there is a method to convert a secondary data set so a primary data set.</p>
<p>Option 3<br>
Best to try converting a secondary data set to a primary data set first.</p>
<p>If you won’t I can post the procedure to convert a secondary to a primary data set.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p></div>derekkent23tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-24T22:05:05Z2019-06-24T22:05:06ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>Thank you derekkent23!</p>
<p>Re Option 1 I'll have to check whether there are missing transactions on the primary at this moment. On the secondary I did some changes to accounts that did come over successfully, but I am not sure that they all did.</p>
<p>Fortunately I do have exported backups from the secondary computer with me, so maybe option 2 is the ticket. I think I have seen posts by you about converting from secondary to primary, so will read more about that. Or if you have the method on hand, yes please do post it.</p>
<p>Any thoughts on why or how this could have happened? Secondary is in a rural location with somewhat dodgy internet, but could a scrambled transaction create such havoc? I've read that deleting a category can change previously reconciled balances, but I don't believe I did that.</p>
<p>It is rather alarming to see all your balances zoom up or down. Shades of 2008!</p></div>nhamdaktag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-24T23:02:38Z2019-06-25T03:09:18ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>I'm a fellow user.</p>
<p>It would probably be pure speculation on the cause. There are some things involved with syncing where we can identify the cause and take appropriate action but in other cases ...</p>
<p>Once you start using syncing there are more moving parts involved, a glitch at any stage can throw it out. Poor internet connectivity can certainly do it. You can get corruption, or a dodgy link could cause the software to think updates have been applied when they haven't etc.</p>
<p>I used to work in the business space using replication solutions and we looked at needing to have Quality of Service agreements on the network side to ensure replication worked as it should. You are not going to get that in the personal space so while it mostly works, at times it will not so you need to have back ups on both sides and understand how to recover.</p></div>dwgtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-25T07:30:38Z2019-06-25T07:30:38ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>I am not support staff, just a user.</p>
<p>I agree with dwg its not always possible to tell what when wrong.</p>
<p>Restore your backup of your secondary data set on to your primary computer.<br>
You should find that the syncing method is set to Don’t Sync and cant be changed.</p>
<p>First do an EXPORT - BACKUP in case something goes Wrong.</p>
<p>To convert a secondary data set to a primary data set you need to run the attached script md2017_convert_secondary_to_master.py in Moneydance 2019. Don’t worry it states 2017.</p>
<p>With your data set open click WINDOW - SHOW MONEYBOT CONSOLE use OPEN SCRIPT to select the script and click RUN. Wait for the script to complete its run, it can take a minute. Close and reopen Moneydance. You should now be able to change the syncing method.</p>
<p>Before setting up syncing reset syncing as follows.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>On your second computer click on HELP – SHOW DOCUMENT FOLDER to open a file explorer, close Moneydance and delete your data sets “yourdatasetname.moneydance”.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Using your primary computer in the Dropbox folder delete the folder “.moneydancesync”. Watch the Dropbox icon and wait till it states “Up to Date”. This can talk some time.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>In your second computer check that in the Dropbox folder that the folder “.moneydancesync” has been automatically deleted. You need to give Dropbox a short time to complete this deletion.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>On your primary computer under FILE - SYNCING, set your “Encryption Passphrase”, set “Sync Method” to “Dropbox Folder”, click OK.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Wait for Dropbox folder “.moneydancesync” and its contents to be created. Check the Dropbox icon states “Up to Date”. This can take some time.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Wait until the same Dropbox folder appears on your second computer, again watch the Dropbox icon this time on your second computer and wait till it states “Up to Date”.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>On your second computer starting Moneydance should open it in the welcome window, click on “Create a new account set”.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Select “Open Synced File” and use dropdown to select “Dropbox Folder” then click NEXT.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>You should see a search screen headed “Select a synced document to open”</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>After a short search delay, it should then list your un-synced data set name used on your primary computer.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Highlight your data set name and click NEXT.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Enter the encryption password, the “Encryption Passphrase” you set on your primary computer under FILE – SYNCING.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Then click on FINISH. Wait for your data to be synced.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>You may find a lot of old, maybe closed accounts or other accounts you have removed from the side bar reappearing in the second computers side bar. Use the “+” sign at bottom of side bar then ADVANCED to tidy up the side bar.</p>
<p>Hope this helps</p></div>derekkent23tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-25T19:41:16Z2019-06-25T19:41:18ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>Thank you both; I've learned a lot about syncing from your comments here (and elsewhere!).</p>
<p>In the interim I have confirmed that ALL of the recent transactions entered on the secondary computer in the month that I was away synced correctly with the primary upon my return. And they all match numbers from the statements to which they were reconciled on 5/31/2019.</p>
<p>Yet the balances today shown on the primary for 5/31/2019 don't match what I saw on the secondary before I came back. For example, credit card balances at the end of a billing period used to match exactly the balance that would be shown on the forthcoming statement. Now they no longer do.</p>
<p>Discrepancies of this sort go back for months and in some cases years. The size of the discrepancies within an account also varies as one goes back in time.</p>
<p>So what could change a past reconciled balance? Arithmetic suggests it is either (1) a change in the initial balance or (2) a change in some transaction within the account before the date of that balance.</p>
<p>For example, deleting a category will apparently delete past transactions and affect past reconciled balances. Are there other gotchas like that? Could changing the name of a category affect past reconciled balances? Could syncing in June 2019 affect transactions that had already been synced in 2018?</p>
<p>I ask because it is a little alarming how many accounts have balances that are out of whack. I will indeed restore the secondary data set onto a test-bed computer and see how balances look on that. Thanks for the postings. I'll post results when I get some.</p></div>nhamdaktag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-25T21:22:27Z2019-06-25T21:22:27ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>I'm a fellow user.</p>
<p>The following article has a list of actions that can throw a reconciled balance out.</p>
<p><a href="https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/kb/register-and-transactions/reconciling">https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/kb/register-and-transactions/rec...</a></p></div>dwgtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-27T21:31:08Z2019-06-27T21:31:10ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>Good news and bad news. This post will be the good news.</p>
<p>I realized I had a laptop running linux 4.15 that could serve as a test-bed computer. So I installed moneydance 2019.1 on it, and imported the backup from the secondary computer onto it. The secondary computer is a few hundred miles away.</p>
<p>Confirmed on the local test-bed that the backup matched all the statement balances as far back as I cared to look.</p>
<p>Following derekkent23's instructions I then imported the backup from the secondary onto the primary computer, and ran his script. It worked with error, and now the balances on the primary match statement balances as well.</p>
<p>Hooray! Thank you both.</p>
<p>The bad news is that the test-bed allowed me to check out the actions that can throw a reconciled balance out, as dwg helpfully pointed to a knowledge base article for me. To this user, looking at the registers, all of them have been ruled out. So to this user sync seems inexplicably unreliable, and I am inclined not to use it again, I will post on those results separately.</p></div>nhamdaktag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-27T21:57:36Z2019-06-27T21:57:36ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>I am not support staff, just a user.</p>
<p>I have been syncing since it was introduced in the 2017 version without any issues. But it seems others from time to time have had issues.</p>
<p>I would suggest updating all your computers to the latest build of Moneydance currently 2019.3(1881). Even if it does not help with syncing it fixes other issues. See <a href="https://infinitekind.com/preview">https://infinitekind.com/preview</a></p>
<p>I was wondering if the distance between your computers was a factor, perhaps in different time zones? So, I asked Sean the Moneydance software developer how he time stamped the sync transaction files. He said he uses UTC so time zones would not be a factor. Perhaps your issue is poor internet connection I don't know.</p>
<p>For background.<br>
In normal operation Moneydance on your devices reads and writes to the folder “.moneydancesync”, creating small transaction files (mdtxn files) in such a way that there should never be any conflicts (at least not to any important files). Filenames are unique and the data is encrypted using your sync key (“Encryption Passphrase”). All changes are recorded in this folder and if any of the changes cause conflicts then they are resolved by checking UTC timestamps that are internal to the file (i.e. not the file modification date). All this is transparent to the user.</p>
<p>Have Fun</p></div>derekkent23tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-28T14:14:05Z2019-06-28T14:14:06ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>Yes, good, I had been planning to update but wanted to do it on the primary first. Now I can!</p>
<p>I've been wondering if I've been using sync for a purpose that it is not really designed for. Specifically my use is a low frequency but high volume when switching from one computer to another. Both computers are in the same time zone, but I was away for a month. When I came back to the primary it had a large number of transactions to chew through and digest. Whereas I'd guess most people use it more frequently but with fewer transactions each time.</p>
<p>I was hoping to get a developer's or support person's attention, so thanks for asking Sean about it. I've been testing other hypotheses about the source of the problem, and none of the documented possibilities seem to account for it. Here are some of the features of what happened that made me switch into "debugging" mode:</p>
<p>(1) Primary and secondary were running the same version of moneydance on the same operating system. When I went up to the secondary it synced and updated perfectly. A month later, coming back to the primary, after syncing, previously reconciled balances changed in several accounts.</p>
<p>(2) But all the recent transactions seemed to have transferred correctly. I set up a test-bed computer to look at the secondary installation while at home base, and confirmed that ALL of the transactions did come over successfully. I also confirmed that all of the initial balances of the affected accounts were identical between primary and secondary, and that I had not deleted any categories while away.</p>
<p>(3) Further evidence that the problem was not localized to recent transactions is that the changes in reconciled balances go back for many months, and in some for years, and by different amounts at different times. Nevertheless the transaction lists in the registers look fine: they are all marked as cleared and reconciled, no new ones are present, none of the amounts look crazy.</p>
<p>I'd guess that whatever caused the problem caused some transactions to be deleted from the affected accounts. I don't know of any easy way to confirm this.</p>
<p>(4) I discovered yesterday that share balances in six different investment accounts had also been affected. In one that is still active a sale of a security sometime in 2016 got deleted, so it showed me as still owning it. Prior to that date the primary and secondary balances match, as I did own it back then. In each of five other accounts that have not been active for years (eg zero balance, but not deleted from moneydance) some number of shares of a security sold long ago reappeared in the portfolio as of 2019. Presumably the transaction in which it was sold had disappeared.</p>
<p>This last in particular was why I was very happy that I could convert the data set from the secondary into a primary, thanks to your help.</p>
<p>It seems something bad happened inside the primary on or after the time I synced after being away for a month. It would be really helpful if someone from support or development could look at this and see if any hypothesis springs to mind. Maybe some internal limit in the program was exceeded by syncing a month's worth all at once? I'd be happy to help if I can. Maybe all that is needed is a note in the syncing knowledge base to the effect "don't try to sync more than X many transactions in Y many accounts at once".</p></div>nhamdaktag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-28T14:30:08Z2019-06-28T14:30:08ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>An additional datum while I remember it.</p>
<p>(5) Here at home base the primary computer and the test-bed computer I set up had identical copies of the Dropbox folder over the last few days. Eg Dropbox was up to date on both machines. When I imported the secondary data set onto the test-bed computer, it gave correct results for prior reconciled balances. The primary computer, with the primary data set and presumably the identical files in the Dropbox folder, gave the incorrect results noted. Yesterday I tried importing the primary data set onto the test-bed computer, and there too it gave the same incorrect results.</p>
<p>I think it follows that errors in the Dropbox data are not sufficient to explain the anomalous results.</p>
<p>(I like debugging!)</p></div>nhamdaktag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-28T18:52:48Z2019-06-28T18:52:48ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>I am not support staff, just a user.</p>
<p>Is it possible to have on one computer displaying your bad primary data set and on the other your converted from secondary good primary data set and look a one account on both computers from the first transaction looking for the point where the two data sets diverge? May be this would give a clue to what happened. A missing transfer to a deleted account or category.</p></div>derekkent23tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-06-28T21:47:42Z2019-06-28T21:47:42ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>I'm a fellow user.</p>
<p>While I believe it is envisaged that systems participating in the syncing relationship would be routinely used I cannot see anything inherent in the methodology used that would cause a problem with less frequently used machines, the concepts are pretty straightforward and the internal timestamps should ensure that transactions are posted in the same order, in some ways not swapping between machines all the time should be easier.</p>
<p>I would normally expect that syncing problems and getting out of sync would show as problems with recent data i.e. machines not being updated with recent activity, whether that be new transactions or modifications to existing transactions, I would not expect it to impact transactions from the past that have not been touched.</p>
<p>If something is happening to older transactions, which were initially correct on both machines, when none of the normal reasons apply (which can be summarised as human actions) suggests to me that some corruption has occurred. This is extremely rare and corruption that does not completely screw things even rarer.</p></div>dwgtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-07-13T18:11:27Z2019-07-13T18:11:28ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>It's been awhile, but I've finally had the time to follow derekkent23's excellent suggestion of putting the two computers side and by and comparing the bad primary to what I'll good the "good secondary". Results are a bit surprising.</p>
<p>I was a refugee from Quicken and when I moved into Moneydance I started all the accounts on 2014.01.01. So on each computer I go into the register for a given account, scroll back to that date, and then scan downwards screen by screen until the balances between the computers did not match.</p>
<p>Here are two findings for all the accounts I have checked so far. First: the initial balances match. Second, the bad primary has bad balances because some transactions in it just disappeared. These are transactions on different dates, in different categories, and for different amounts. The dates, categories, and amounts do not match across accounts.</p>
<p>For example, the checking account balances were off in the bad primary. The first missing transaction in it was on 2014.07.07 for $200. That's not enough to account for the discrepancy in 2019, so I kept going. A second one on 2015.03.04 for $234 was missing. That's still not enough, so there must be more.</p>
<p>In a credit card account the first missing transaction was on 2014.10.28 for $10. The second one on 2015.04.10 for $40.89. Different categories, different payees.</p>
<p>In a third account the first missing transaction was on 2014.07.01 for $7.98, the second on 2015.09.24 for $57.24. In the second and third accounts, just like the checking account, the final discrepancies are larger than the sum of these first two missing transactions, so there must be more.</p>
<p>In the good secondary all the transactions are present. In the bad primary the balances are still computed correctly: if one adds all the missing transactions to the balance shown in the register, it will match the balance in the good secondary.</p>
<p>So this is really a very odd error, involving a semi-random collection of old transactions I hadn't even touched when I was away from the primary. It is as if the primary hiccuped or got hit by a cosmic ray when it was syncing in the new data, and it lost tiny batches of old data. Like dwg, I would have expected things to be completely screwed up, rather than finding these multiple pin-point lesions in the data.</p></div>nhamdaktag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-07-13T22:09:12Z2019-07-13T22:09:12ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>I'm a fellow user.</p>
<p>Normally when individual transactions go missing we look towards there being some of the small transaction files having disappeared before being incorporated into the main trunk file or being marked as included when they have not been incorporated. This though could only happen with MD2017 & MD2019 and with recently entered or modified transactions. How an older untouched transaction could go missing without a human doing a delete has me baffled</p></div>dwgtag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-07-14T08:58:54Z2019-07-14T08:58:54ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>I am not support staff, just a user.</p>
<p>I was hoping the comparison would uncover the issue. The missing transactions associated with a category or account that had been deleted. But if you can’t find a common thread through the missing transactions then I simply don’t know.</p></div>derekkent23tag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-07-14T14:43:05Z2019-07-14T14:43:07ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>Yup, it's a head-scratcher all right. I've since confirmed that the lists of categories in the bad primary and the good secondary are identical, none were deleted or edited. And re my finding #4 above, in an investment account whose last transaction occurred more than four years ago (2015.07.01), the bad primary lost a buy transaction from 2015.02.20. So when I do a portfolio now it shows me as having shorted a number of shares, yet possessing a cash balance of $846. Needless to say I hadn't touched that account when I was working on the secondary back in June.</p>
<p>For now I guess the moral of the story is to let other users know: THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! In particular, as has been emphasized elsewhere, it is a REALLY GOOD IDEA to have a backup system that is distinct from Dropbox folder sync. My goose would have been cooked if I hadn't had one!</p></div>nhamdaktag:infinitekind.tenderapp.com,2009-01-14:Comment/473811522019-07-14T21:36:42Z2019-07-14T21:36:42ZReconciled balances change after Dropbox folder sync<div><p>The syncing data should never ever be considered to be a backup, that is not its function. Backups are a point in time copy of your data at a specific known point in time in the past, syncing data cannot meet this criteria.</p>
<p>Yes there are times when it can be used to recover your data but having to do this means that someone did not perform backups or did not do them properly.</p></div>dwg