Archive for the ‘Quickbooks’ Category

Quickbooks -“could be a firewall problem”

Unfortunately QuickBooks error messages are often misleading and of little help. A prime example of this is the relatively common error message which reads;

“It appears that the QuickBooks software on computer ________ is set up to allow shared access to the company file, but the QuickBooks software on your computer is unable to communicate with it.”

Which also provides the suggested solution;

“The communication problem could be due to a firewall issue. If a firewall is installed on your network, you may need to reconfigure the firewall software.”

Granted the firewall, whether the Windows firewall or a 3rd party firewall, does have to be configured to allow QuickBooks data access, in most cases where people are seeing this message the file has been accessible for some time. Generally during QuickBooks installation the Windows firewall is automatically configured but if you need to review, the QuickBooks site has detailed documentation https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-ca/apps-integrations/set-up-firewall-and-security-settings-for-quickbooks-desktop/00/262400

The message does indicate QuickBooks can “see” the data but cannot access it, indicating the firewall is at least partially configured. Test if one user can access the file but not multiple. If only one user can connect, fist make sure QuickBooks is not in single user mode. If not, it usually indicates a problem with the QuickBooks Database Server Manager. First make sure the QuickBooks service is running in the Services management console. It will show as QuickBooksDBxx where xx indicates your version (see below). You can also run the “File Doctor’ tool and/or scan for QuickBoks files using the QuickBooks Database Manager console. The latter often fixes this and other connection isssues.

All of those suggestions can be found on many sites, however I recently came across a different issue. When you install Quickbooks it creates a QuickBooks user/service account and a QuickBooks service with a suffix indicating the QuickBooks version/year. See the list below. If you do not uninstall the previous year’s QuickBooks, which is fine, you end up with multiple QuickBooks services in the Services management console. Normally the most recent one will start, but If instead one of the older versions starts, you can receive the aforementioned error message. To permanently resolve, set all older versions to disabled and the newest to automatic.

QuickBooks services created by each version/year of Quickbooks:

QuickBooks ver 2012 QuickBooksDB22
QuickBooks ver 2013 QuickBooksDB23
QuickBooks ver 2014 QuickBooksDB24
QuickBooks ver 2015 QuickBooksDB25
QuickBooks ver 2016 QuickBooksDB26
QuickBooks ver 2017 QuickBooksDB27
QuickBooks ver 2018 QuickBooksDB28
QuickBooks ver 2019 QuickBooksDB29
QuickBooks ver 2020 QuickBooksDB30
QuickBooks ver 2021 QuickBooksDB31

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Category:

Firewalls, Networking, Quickbooks, Troubleshooting, Uncategorized

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Unable to Open QuickBooks Data File

Several months after every QuickBooks Pro and Enterprise annual upgrade my clients run into an issue where they cannot connect to the QuickBooks database with messages indicating, the application cannot access the database, and H2020 Error, or QuickBooks is unable to open this company file due to the file being open on another computer in single user mode.  Most recently, as per the image below:

I have found over the years the solution is to open the services management console  ( services.msc )  on the server or computer hosting the data, scroll down to locate the QuickBooks service named “QuickBooksDBxx”, where xx = a number relating to the current version.  If you have installed multiple versions over the years there will be one for each year.  You want the one with the highest number. (note in the images below the changes have already been made)

Double click on the service to open the properties for that service and click on the “Log On” tab.  The radio button “This Account” will be checked, a QBDataServixeUserxx” name will be shown, and a hidden password entered.  Change to “Local System account”, click apply and close, then right click on the service and choose start. (NOTE: if you change this setting to service account and want to change back for some reason you will likely need to re-install QuickBooks)

You now need to run the “QuickBooks Database Server Manager” app from the programs menu, in the QuickBooks folder.  Under the Scan Folders tab make sure the folder that contains your data is shown  If not browse to it and select, then click the “Start Scan” button.  It should show “successful” when done and you can choose close.  Assuming you have the same issue, running this wizard before making the change above will result in “failure”.

Category:

Quickbooks, Troubleshooting, Uncategorized

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