QUICKBOOKS online Desktop app not starting

Hi there, don052. Thank you for doing the troubleshooting steps to fix the error when opening the QuickBooks Online (QBO) Desktop app.

Since you've mentioned in your other post that you can access QBO without using the VPN, I recommend reaching out to your IT personnel for them to determine the best course of action.

If you want to keep using your VPN while opening QuickBooks, I recommend enabling split tunneling or whitelisting the QBO Desktop App from your VPN.

Feel free to reply to the thread if you need further assistance related to QuickBooks. We'll be here to help.

Is the VPN setting on our firewall or Norton software?

The Quickbooks Online Desktop App was working fine for me yesterday (8/4/25), but I am getting the same endless "something went wrong" dialog box with the try again button since this morning (8/5/25). It pops up after the loading bar is about 30% full from launching the app.

I was able to get it to work. I uninstalled and rebooted. I downloaded the app and tried to install but it said there was an error. I opened Norton Utilities and found the app was still in the list to uninstall, so I did. Once again, I rebooted. I tried to install again, and it popped the error up again almost too soon, so I tried it again and then the app just popped open. 

I have  the exact same issue, and I am not using a VPN of any type. It worked 8/4, it does not work 8/5.

I understand how important accessing the QBO desktop app is and I appreciate all your efforts, @Kyle__D , @WillC2 , @Hawthorne-IS. I recommend contacting our live support team to further check why you’re unable to launch the desktop app, and they can also guide you through the next steps.

Here's how:

1. Go to Help.
2. Select the Search tab, then choose Contact Us.
3. Type in your issue or concern in the field.
4. Hit Continue.
5. Click the Chat or Callback option.

Our live support team is available Monday to Friday, 6 AM–6 PM PT, and Saturday, 6 AM–3 PM PT.
 

In the meantime, I recommend using the QuickBooks Online Desktop app through the web browser as an alternative.

If you'd like to add a QuickBooks Online shortcut to your desktop, refer to this article: Create a desktop shortcut.

We'll be around to help you if you have any other concerns.

Our team is having the same issue, but it seems to be intermittent. Yesterday I got the error twice before it started up properly. Yesterday afternoon, the rest of my team was unable to get into the app. This morning it started up for me immediately, but my team is still getting the error. Was anyone able to get a useful answer from QB support?