Ok: TL;DR: You don't need to install Parallels/Windows and QuickBooks to fix this problem - just QuickBooks.
Do the following if QBDT crashes on you when you press the "Transaction List" button:
- Backup your company file to a safe place
- In Windows, run the uninstaller for QBDT (to remove it from your "PC")
- Open Edge in Windows and log into your Quickbooks account. Find the most current version of the software that you purchased and download it
- Open the installation program and install QBDT.
- Open QBDT and restore your company file from your backup
- Click Bank Feeds, wait for the Transaction List to appear and then press it. The list of "pending transactions" will now appear and you can post them
I spent 90 minutes with Intuit Customer Service and we tried all of the usual stuff (outlined in the posts attached to this thread). We got to the point where Customer Service said that I needed to email them my QBW file for them to fix - which for any number of reasons, I was reluctant to do.
So as she was trying to assist, I thought about installing a clean copy of QBDT on another computer. This was an iMac (Intel) running macOS Monterey 12.7.6, Parallels Desktop Desktop 17.1.7 (older version) and Windows 10 (older version). Turns out that this worked.
After the support call ended, I followed the procedure above on my MacBook Pro M3 Max, running Parallels 20.1.1 and Windows 11 - just to eliminate the "well it only runs correctly on Windows 10" possibility. After restoring from the same backup file, it also worked.
So, what have we learned?
- QBDT/Windows does work on macOS (different versions, different chip architecture) running Parallels and on Windows 10 and 11.
- If you run into problems that can't be corrected by repairing your Company File, try to back it up, uninstall and re-install QBDT. Not the ideal solution but it beats having to install Parallels/Windows every time and certainly beats having to buy a Windows PC just for QBDT.
A few other notes:
- QBDT does not appear to support Bank Feeds to AMEX like they used to (you would connect and it would automatically download all of your transactions). I believe that only QB Online offers this capability. If you want to use QBDT, you need to log into AMEX, find the transactions you want to export and then download them as a QBO file. Then double click on the QBO file from Windows File Explorer while QBDT is open and it will import the transactions for you. If I had to guess why this service was discontinued it is probably because the old connection does not support any kind of secure two-factor authentication (it just saved your username and password) and for whatever reason, Intuit and/or AMEX decided not to provide this capability to QBDT users
- I have a sneaking suspicion that all of these "updates" that are downloaded from Intuit's website create issues over time, either because the incremental patching process has bugs in it, the patches have bugs in them that have not fully been regression tested or both. There's an old saying in software engineering that says "debugging is the process of replacing old bugs with new ones".
Final comment for anyone from Intuit who is listening. Many of use DO NOT WANT TO USE AN ONLINE VERSION OF ANYTHING IF IT RISKS EXPOSING CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION. Data breaches have become the norm now and typically, it isn't the company itself who is responsible but a "third-party contractor" that incorrectly installed a patch that led to a massive data breach. So please, continue to invest in client-based software tools like QBDT and make sure that it is treated with first-class features.
