As I explained before, if I change the Chrome setting to download PDFs, then it gives me the Save dialog every time for all PDF attachments, regardless of when they were uploaded. That makes sense. Is that how your browser is set? Mine is not, and starting with files attached on 11/8, QBO ignores my preference for opening the file in a new browser tab. But files that were attached on 11/6 and earlier still preview in a new tab, as they have always done (I did not attach any files on 11/7). I did not change anything. This appears to be a bug in QBO that was introduced on or around November 6. I have read that new features are usually rolled out on the 6th of the month.

I have been attaching files for three years in my QBO checking register. This has never happened before. And as I wrote earlier, it is not a problem with my company file. It did the exact same thing when I tried attaching a file in your QBO demo company as your support rep watched.

Having to download a file that I just uploaded in order to check it is absurd.

@JessT  Unfortunately your response has ignored again what we have been saying. We have had our settings within Quickbooks checked, double and triple checked but the issue is with Quickbooks software.

Regardless of how many times we untick and recheck options within Quickbooks and browser (tried on different browsers and platforms) settings, the problem persists. We do not have the time to waste repeating these steps at the request of yet another support staff. It's akin to banging your head on the wall and expecting it not to hurt after trying it again for the 100th time. 

Please escalate the matter further up the chain of support so that the issue maybe fixed. 

Craig, do you know whether I am correct that updates are "rolled out" (translation: forced on users) on the 6th of every month? If that is the case, then the timing of this problem's onset strongly points to the latest release.

I wonder too whether all users get the updates at the same time. As I mentioned above, my daughter tested it for me last week and reported that her attachment opened in Adobe Reader, and the Save dialog also popped up. I wish I could determine whether we are both on the same release.

I'm not sure when they do the updates. I can confirm that when I used it on 4th November 2022 it functioned correctly, the following week it didn't so something happened over that weekend.

I'm mainly a Mac user on Safari so when you click on the attachment it briefly opens a new tab, saves the attachment to the Downloads folder and closes the tab again. I then tried it on Chrome on the Mac and basically the same but it just downloads it. Then changed platforms to Windows 10 on a PC again using Chrome and then Internet Explorer with the same results. 

Companies House continues to open PDF's in new tabs as does other online software so rules out browser setting problems.  

Thanks, Craig. I'm also mainly a Mac user, and the behavior in Safari for me is exactly as you describe – for recent attachments only. Those uploaded on 11/6 or earlier open in a new Safari tab. It looks like we've been trying the same things, except that I had not tested it with Explorer. I get the same result with PNGs, so this is not specific to PDFs. On a website that I manage, PDFs are behaving as they always have in Chrome.

Wow.I just tried to add attachments today. I ran into this very issue. I tried so many things before I went to the on-line chat. I tried the normal fumbling around with searching key word in the help section. I eventually gave up and went to live chat. We've all been in that "therapy window" before. The result is, I have a case number, not that it will help. I'd like to point out that the agent knew nothing of this issue. Am I surprised? No. The two hours I spent could have been avoided. FWIW, I live in Canada. I searched on-line support in the Canadian community before the live chat. I still haven't found anything as good as this thread. I was so frustrated and couldn't help but think others must have had the same issue and I just stumbled upon this under the US side of the community. Go figure!  What I need to know is if this was indeed a deliberate claw-back of our previous functionality? Can any moderator out there please verify that it was an intentional software change made on the Canadian side? Basically, I'd rather know now rather than later. Why keep paying for something going backwards? You should have seen the issues I had with Sync With Square that were never resolved when they forced that conversion.

Welcome, OldToad. I'm glad you found us.

One of the most frustrating things is when a QuickBooks employee chimes in to say "That's the way it has always worked." Uh, no it's not.

At this point I'm just waiting for December 6, and hoping that a new round of "improvements" will change it back to the way it was.

I have had one additional live chat session with support since starting this thread. First thing I did was post a link to it and tell the rep not to reply further until he had read the whole thing. Of course he didn't, and proceeded to suggest a brilliant fix: clear my browser cache.

Thanks for the only laugh I've had about this today. Seeking honest responses from the expert employees is like trying to find the gold at the end of a rainbow. To me, the "kiss" method for solutions would be to tell us they know of the problem, that they know it was a change in policy, or not, or they are actually working on their error. But, that would be too???? honest???

I've run into the same issue that you have all described and I find it absolutely ludicrous that this has changed. As @Roland12 has pointed out - what's the point of uploading a document, just to download it again to view it later!!! The whole point of uploading a document is to actually view it online in the browser.  I have just migrated 2 companies to QBO and now run into this issue and can't believe what I'm dealing with.  I have a 3rd company I'm ready to pull the trigger on to migrate to QBO but with this issue I'm having 2nd thoughts.  When I contacted QB support, they told me I can no longer view attachments in the browser and have to now download them.  Crazy!!  Thank you for this thread as I will now try to stop banging my head against a brick wall and hope QBO comes to their senses and re-instates the way attachments were able to open in the browser as before. 

I'm a (new to) Mac user running Safari as well.  My experience is slightly different when trying to open a saved PDF file that's attached to, for instance, an expense:

• Open expense record
• Click on PDF attachment
• Opens new browser window and just spins and spins... 
• There is no option to download the attachment (when I try, it gives me an HTML link...)

Is anyone having a similar experience?  This is super frustrating, and the only way I can open PDF attachments currently is to whip out my old Windows laptop...

Thank you, shs. I have not experienced that with Safari. For me, it does almost exactly the same thing as Chrome: attachments made on 11/6 and before open in a new Safari tab. Those attached after 11/6 download automatically, without giving me the Save dialog that Chrome does. I suspect the difference might be in my Safari settings. In Chrome there is a setting for "Ask where to save each file before downloading." I have that turned on, and I suspect there is something similar in Safari that I haven't bothered with since I rarely use Safari.

Thank you for sharing your QuickBooks experience here in the Community, @shs_treasurer.

We haven't received any reported issues about opening a saved PDF file that is attached to a transaction. Let's run some troubleshooting steps to get this resolved.

It's possible that the Safari browser you're using had a data issue. There are times the browser stores frequently accessed data, thus causing QuickBooks to act weirdly. 

To verify, let's log in to your QuickBooks Online (QBO) account using a private browser by pressing Command + Option + P on your keyboard. Once logged in, go back and open a saved PDF file that is attached to a transaction again to double-check.

If this works, they need to clear the browser's cache so the system can start fresh. If they get the same result while using a private browser, I recommend switching to a different one.

Come back to this post and let me know how it goes, @shs_treasurer. I want to make sure this issue is taken care of.

You may also want to run and customize reports in QuickBooks. This will help you view useful information about your sales and purchase transactions.

Wishing you all the best!

This is not personal MARK, you wrote this in your recent reply, in THIS THREAD. "We haven't received any reported issues about opening a saved PDF file that is attached to a transaction. Let's run some troubleshooting steps to get this resolved."

I seriously couldn't believe I read that response. Who is we???? You? Your team? Anybody on any customer service team? Are the people we chat with not on a team?   ANY????

I am gob-smacked. Unbelievable! The issue is that opening a pdf attachment does not work in the same manner that we were used to is the core of the real problem in this thread. I'm now trying to find out the official QB answer. Was it intentional to change that behaviour and if so, I'd actually like to know if it was intentional to not advise users?

I didn't want to get into this, but now I am going to show my correspondence resulting from my case number. In fairness, I did get quick responses, but I'll let you decide for yourselves exactly whether I've been answered properly within the context of this entire thread.

Their first immediate email for the case simply asked me to screen share to help solve this. I did not include that first e-mail for the community to read as it was simple enough to understand.BTW, I did not screen share as I had tried to on the original chat.

So, MY RESPONSE TO THEIR FIRST E-MAIL....

THEIR RESPONSE TO THE E-MAIL I SENT DIRECTLY ABOVE.....

Thank for responding to my email..
Again, we need to check the browser preferences. We need to rule out the possibilities why this issue has occurred. 

MY FINAL E-MAIL IN RESPONSE TO THE LAST EMAIL

I provided all that is necessary. The thread presented the problem. The browser settings have nothing to do with this. I am going to add the responses(edited to conceal names) from you to the thread. 

. I tried. I led the horse to the water, but I still could not make it drink. I still can't believe Mark's response above came out the way it did, especially within the context of this thread.

Moderators with the official authority to speak on behalf of QB, please feel free to address the attachment feature's current inability to display without a download back onto our desktops. If I've missed something, please correct me.

Tell us when you did it, why you did it, why there has been no heads up so far that I've found.or missed, other than this thread, why the help team mostly still knows nothing about it to this day….or best yet….are you planning on putting it back?

Well said, OldToad. Thank you. When I saw Mark's advice to "clear the browser's cache," I had to take a long walk to cool off. Good thing I'm retired from my real job. QBO support appears to be nearing worthlessness. The left hand truly does not know what the right is doing. Plus they can't read.

One of the main questions I want answered is why attachments made on 11/6 or before still behave the way I want them to, but more recent ones don't. That is just weird, and points to a malfunction of the program.

If it turns out that this was an intentional change, why in the world would they do that? With the way it has always worked before, I could view the attached file easily, and if I did want to download it I could do so – again, easily – from the new browser tab. So it was win-win. Now I have no choice but to download the file to view it, which is stupid. Dumb, dumb, dumb. And what is the advantage in making this change? Does it eliminate world hunger or something? If the intention is to make me grumpy, mission accomplished.

I also have this problem where I can no longer open PDF attachments in a new window.  I don't know if this is a coincidence or if it has something to do with the lockout of my account at the beginning of November.  This was not due to a username or password issue, this was a strange error that was happening where the 2FA code wasn't being sent/received.  When this happened, I reached out to QB, and they said there was an outage of some sort and it was being worked on.  They said only some users were impacted and didn't know why.  Eventually, the issue was resolved, and I could get back in.  It wasn't long after that the look of QB Online changed for me, and I also started having this problem with my PDFs not opening a new tab with the PDF when clicking on the transaction attachments.  I do not see any other comments on my previous issue, did any of you having this PDF problem also get locked out of your account due to 2FA issues?  Has your QB menu tree changed recently?  The reason I ask is that other users on our QB Online package did not have the 2FA outage issue, have not seen any changes to their QB menu, and can view PDFs in a new window tab without issues.  (The 2FA outage I'm referring to had subscription updates titled "Some QuickBooks Online Customers are not receiving login codes" and presumably was resolved 11/01/22 10:47PDT; I have been having issues with QB ever since, unsure if it's all related or not ...including this PDF issue.)

Thanks, 5Stones. I have not experienced any sign-in problems recently. However, I did notice (around the same time as the attachment malfunction began, I think) that my menu on the left side looked screwy all of a sudden. It turns out that this is what they call "Business view." Maybe it has been available all along; I don't know. I did not like it at first, mainly because I thought it was being forced on me, which as it turns out it wasn't. But once I discovered that I could make my own bookmarks to things that I use most often, I started warming up to it, and have been using it all the time. I keep the main menu hidden, and only have my custom bookmarks showing along the left side. I also found that I can switch back to the old "Accountant view" at any time via the gear menu [forehead slap].

Just for grins, I'm going to attach a test PDF to this comment so I can see how it is handled here.

Edit: When I click the download icon next to Test PDF, a Save dialog opens. Okay. But if I click the filename, the page goes gray and locks up. So no viewing of attachments here either, I guess.

OldToad, my reasons for switching were similar. Cloud programs are a fabulous invention. As I believe I mentioned before, I have been a QuickBooks user since Version 1.0 and switched to QBO soon after it became available. Support in the beginning was superb.

But this might be the last straw. The cost has gone up, and now represents a significant expense for our small church. I'm tempted to simply retire and let somebody else handle the books however they want. Or maybe hire the payroll part out, and switch to the free Wave Accounting for the rest. It is now capable of connecting to our bank for downloading checking transactions. I am using Melio Payments for bill paying through QBO, but don't believe you have to be a QuickBooks user to remain a Melio client. They recently started charging for mailing paper checks out, but still will do ACH transfers for free. I would have to maintain dual systems, but the sync between QBO and Melio is sketchy anyway, at least when it comes to updating vendor information.

Worked, thanks!

What worked?

Hi Roland12

LOL. Well, we know what wasn't fixed!

BTW...In the interests of following my case, I just received another e-mail. I just received this tonight.

Greetings 
Sorry that it took me long to respond regarding on this. 
I just wanted to let you know that we need thorough information regarding on this, and that includes the click path and using different browsers as well. We are sorry for this inconvenience, and we acknowledged that this affects the way you usually use QuickBooks. However, we need your cooperation to get the bottom of this specific behavior you're experiencing on your end. 
If we have any available time, please reply to the preferred phone number to be contacted so we can continue reporting this concern and we can use another computer. 
Best Regards. 
QuickBooks Online Canada Support

 MY REPLY SENT TO THE ABOVE EMAIL IS AS FOLLOWS...

PLEASE listen to me, as you will find “all” that you need to solve this problem, has already been provided to you, especially to troubleshoot the issue. See my last email to you where I suggested it to you what to try.

Thanks for trying, OT.

It is baffling to me that nobody from QBO support has yet confirmed to me whether there was a change in the program, or even that changes ever happen at all. A competent support team would have explained how the update process works, when updates are rolled out (is it on a regular schedule, say, once a month?), and whether all users get the latest update as soon as it is released. Actually, a company that has its act together would send an announcement every time listing the changes and new features, with contact info specifically for update-related issues.

A humble request

If you manage to fix this issue, please do not write:

"That worked! Thank you!"

"Never mind, I figured it out."

"Fixed!"

Please please please explain exactly what steps you took so those of us who are still struggling with this can fix it too and get back to work.

Hello there.

This isn't the experience we want you to have with your concerns. I've seen you've exerted effort in explaining your experiences. I'm here to provide information and updates.

Please know we'll investigate where our team needs communication to meet expectations. Thus, we can identify a known issue matching their description reported for the UK region. We've forwarded your information, like the detailed account. Rest assured, our engineering team will further investigate the cause of this unexpected behavior. Please bear with us as we work on this.

Keep me posted if you have any other concerns. I'll be around for you. Take care always.