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January 26, 2019
Question

Adding or Editing Rules Stalls or Freezes

  • January 26, 2019
  • 78 replies
  • 94 views

I am using my client's brand new Windows 10 4GB Laptop which doesn't show any speed issues.  I am also using QB Pro 2017.  My issue is with adding or editing rules.  I go off and do errands around the house while I'm waiting for the pop up window to appear.  During this time, running Task Manager doesn't show any significant signs of Memory, CPU or Hard Drive abuse.  At first I thought it was the 200+ auto created rules, so I deleted all of them except for the dozen or so I created.  I did change the COA to use numbers as well as some description names, which is why I thought it was stalling when I had all those auto entered rules.  However, if I'm adding a brand new rule, I can't see why my new COA would impact this.

 

Any ideas, as I'm charging this client by the hour and each entry isn't worth $875 per hour ;).

 

Thank you in advance as always.

78 replies

January 26, 2019

Hello there, @Budget Friendly Bookkeeping.

 

Let me help determine what's causing this unusual behavior in QuickBooks Pro. 

 

First, let's try this process on your sample company file in QuickBooks to check if there's a freezing behavior when adding or editing rules. If you didn't encounter the same issue, then it's possible that this behavior may be caused by the following:

 

  • Your company name is too long.
  • Damaged or missing QBWUSER.INI file.
  • Corruption on your hard drive.
  • Damaged program files or QuickBooks Desktop installation.
  • Damaged Windows operating system.

Let's try using the QuickBooks Diagnostic Tool to get this working. 

 

Here's how:

 

  1. Download the QuickBooks Install DiagnosticTool.
  2. When prompted, save the file to the local Desktop.
  3. Close any open programs and run the QBInstall Tool.
  4. Restart the computer after running the tool to ensure the components are properly updated.

If the issue persists, please refer to this article for other troubleshooting steps: QuickBooks Desktop won't open, has stopped working, or not responding.

 

As always, you can contact our Desktop Support if you need help in going through the steps. They also have helpful tools that can isolate this issue further. 

 

Here's how to get their contact information:

 

  1. Go to: https://help.quickbooks.intuit.com/en_US/contact.
  2. Choose your QuickBooks Product.
  3. Select your QuickBooks Version.
  4. On the Contact Us page, click a topic.
  5. Click on the Get Phone Number button to see the support number.

Let me know if you have other questions about adding rules in QuickBooks. I'm here to help however I can. Happy weekend. :)

January 26, 2019

I want to thank you for your help.  I had a thought and it paid off.  I decided to do an update.  Sure enough, as soon as it finished all signs of stalling or freezing ceased.

 

Again, thank you.  You helped me to think this through.

January 28, 2019

Oh well.  I thought the update did the trick.  Unfortunately, the problem persisted.  I followed your steps opening the Sample Company and the same thing happened.  I went ahead and renamed the QBUSER.INI file and tried again - no go.

 

Interestingly, each time I tried something and re-opened any company file or restarted the computer, Adding or Editing Rules started out fine, for about 3 or 4 Adds or Edits.  Then it begins to get horribly slow to the point of doing 100 push-ups waiting for it to respond.  I also noticed that when I opened a saved Rule, the vendor I originally saved the Rule under had changed to a default of a random vendor.  I cannot say it impacted all of my entered transactions just yet and I am hopeful there was no harm done.  However, this has really slowed me down and I'm nor sure how to proceed.  I am not so willing to start playing with the entitlement file as this is a client computer and I'm not sure I can register the program again.

 

Are there any other suggestions at this time or is it time to elevate this issue?  In the meantime, if possible, I may try and take the company file and try it on a different computer, assuming I can find this program on another computer.

 

Thanks again for your help, in advance.

June 21, 2019

Just curious what is COA?

 

July 24, 2019
I rebuilt the file a few times and then restored from one of the back up files created during the rebuild things are moving faster now.
Angelyn_T
Moderator
July 24, 2019

Hello there, @jbauman01

 

It's my pleasure to know that you're now able to get back to business and work things faster now by rebuilding your file.

 

In case you'll encounter issues about QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) stop working/freezes in the future, you may also check these articles to resolve the issue: 

 

 

Our doors are always open here on the Community page, stay posted if you have any other QuickBooks concerns. I'm just a post away to help.

July 31, 2019
THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE TO HAVE TO REBUILD A FILE EVERY TIME THIS HAPPENS WHICH IS EVERY MONTH.
August 21, 2020

Problem still exist in QB Pro 2020

AlexV
Level 10
August 21, 2020

Good day, DANZI.

 

Thanks for joining the thread.

 

I understand that you'd like to resolve this issue. It's best to reach out to our Technical Team if none of the troubleshooting steps mentioned in this thread fixed it.

  1. Go to the Help menu and select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
  2. Click the Contact Us button or the QuickBooks support hyperlink.

I'll be here if you have other concerns. Wishing you all the best!

August 21, 2020

I have been using QB for 20 years. In the past I helped the tech support for solving some of the problems. Let me tell you something the freeze is a Quick Book problem and not a computer or Operating systems problem.

I suggest to intuit to work on fixing this problem otherwise they are going to lose many customers.  This freeze happen when you try import the .qbo files. I think they should work on the Rule list capability of exporting and importing the list to Excel or word or text file where some one will be able to do the editing in that tools or making the edit rule in quick book more flexible easy  where some can find and search and replace ... etc.

November 10, 2021

There is obviously a memory leak. Quickbooks is spending longer and longer looking for free memory to open the Edit Rule dialog. The immediate solution is to close and reopen the company file. However, Intuit can easily fix it. It is just a bug. There is no need to rewrite the program in a language that avoids memory leaks. 

November 27, 2021

Jay, Have you found any solution to this?  It is driving me insane.  After auto-saving rules, I have hundreds that I need to edit so that in the future they auto-sort correctly.  I am waiting 1-5 min for each edit window to open, impossible.  Opening and closing the program is difficult because I use QBDT on a hosted platform (3rd party), which is 5x slower to open and close every time, first requiring a separate secure connection through Parallels. It's almost impossible for me to work at this point. I don't even want to waste hours on the phone with QB support given all of these threads.  

Moderator
November 27, 2021

Hi there, @ttonella.

 

I want to make sure your concern is taken care of, and I'd like to redirect you to the best support group available to get this addressed right away.

 

Before anything else, have you tried verifying and rebuilding the data in your QuickBooks Desktop? If you haven't yet, I recommend doing it so. It helps sort data issues in your company file.

 

If you get the same result, I suggest reaching out to our QuickBooks Support Team. You may have a bad experience with our support team, but they're the best support group that can further check on this matter. To get in touch with them, please follow the steps below:

 

  1. Go to the Help icon and select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
  2. Click Contact Us.
  3. Write your concerns in the description box, then select Continue.
  4. Select which one of the support options you'd like to use.

 

You can also check out this article for another way of reaching out to our support team and its support hours: QuickBooks Desktop Support.

 

As always, you can visit our QuickBooks Community help website if you need tips and related articles in the future.

 

Please know you can continue to reach me here with any additional questions. I'm always around if you need any help.

November 10, 2021

Correction. Need to close and reopen QuickBooks, not just the company file, to restore the free memory pool for use by Edit Rule