Why are Bill, Purchase Order, Invoice, and Estimate attachments no longer opening in separate browser tab?

Hello there, @rjmelville.
 

I'd love to help you achieve your goal, but would you mind telling me more about it? Like, have you encountered the same issue when trying to open attachments in another browser? This way, I can provide you with the best resolution. 

I appreciate any details you can provide. I’m looking forward to your reply. Have a great rest of the day.

Hi @Carneil_C -

Same behavior in Safari as in Chrome, attachments are downloaded locally instead of previewed in browser tab. After further testing, it appears that this issue is only occurring with attachments accessed through Purchase Orders and Bills (Vendors). Attachments accessed via Estimates or Invoices to Customers are opening in a new browser tab as expected. Furthermore, the only file types I have tested are PDF and images, which used to open in browser and are now being downloaded. File types like Excel (xls) have always required local download to view so download is expected.

Thank you for the details, rjmelville.

I can't remember attachments being previewed in a separate tab. Clicking on them will always download the PDF copy to the local drive. Same thing with my colleagues. However, it's great to know that you're able to do that.

Aside from trying a different browser, you can also clear the cached files. However, if the same thing happens, you can contact our QBO Support to report this behavior. They can use a screen-sharing tool to see your setup.

Let me know if you have more questions in mind. Take care and have a good one!

Hi @rjmelville,

In case you're interested, a similar discussion is going on here: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/banking/re-why-do-pdfs-that-i-attach-to-transactio.... The more of us report this issue and give feedback about it, the more chance we have of getting it changed back.

Copied from my post in the thread that I started:

Good news! This appears to be fixed. This morning I attached PDFs to two transactions in my checking register, and they open in a new browser tab when I click the links.

So I guess my suspicion was correct all along: This was a bug introduced with the November 6 update, and now it has been corrected in the December 6 update.

@rjmelville 

I also had this issue back in November.  Everything was working fine after the December update and into January until today 1/11.  I started experiencing the same issue and checked with my other offices running separate QBO companies and they are having the same problem again.  Every attached pdf through yesterday can be viewed as a separate browser window, but today it's bringing up a "Save As" window to put in the Download file.

Are you having the same issue again?

@NHRiverGal 

Yep, just tested it and it has reverted back to downloading newly uploaded files instead of opening in browser tab. This significantly slows down our workflow, as I imagine it does for you and your colleagues as well. I will submit another feedback ticket about this and hopefully they'll push a fix in the next release. Thank you for the heads up!

Thank you, Mich_S. I tried an attachment just now and can confirm that it is indeed working correctly again.

Is it going to stay fixed this time? As you have alluded to, any files that have been attached during the "bug" period will have to be deleted and re-uploaded if we want them to exhibit proper viewing behavior. I have not been attaching any files but instead saving them up in the hope that this would be fixed again. Now it will take me half a day to upload all of those. I shudder to think how much work this will be for more serious users who have dozens or even hundreds of transactions a day.

Hello, Roland12.

I'm happy that it's already working on your end. QuickBooks is making every effort to prevent this issue from happening again and to provide a permanent solution. 

Thought, I understand how frustrating it may be when something doesn't work properly for you. Rest assured, our product development team is working diligently to fix every issue permanently. 

Moreover, consider checking out this help article in case you've got other QuickBooks concerns, such as setting up online banking, running reports and reconciliation, managing income and expenses, employees and payroll taxes, setting up inventories and projects, etc. to keep your business up and running smoothly. 

As always, the Community is here if you have any questions concerning about attachment. You can reach out to me by posting your response.