How to restore Accounts Personal Historic Data?

Neil Donaldson_7013818
Neil Donaldson_7013818 Member Posts: 19
I recently upgraded to Personal Plus 2015 and now all of the historical data on share pricing has disappeared. How can the 5 year or longer) historical pricing information be uploaded?

Comments

  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited February 2017

    Share price data is stored in the .qph file. Does this file still exist ?

    Alternatively, have the company codes or the settings for these companies changed with the upgrade ? Hopefully only the links to the existing stored prices have been lost.

    If you can download share prices from other web sites which store asx historical data, you can re-format them to a suitable layout .csv file to re-import what you have lost. .csv format is:

    "share,Close,,Date,,High,Low,volume,"
    amc,7.35,---,24/02/2006,---,7.46,7.32,63712,*
    amc,7.37,---,27/02/2006,---,7.44,7.33,19715,*

    see the related article for lots more info:

    https://community.reckon.com.au/reckon/topics/how_to_manually_update_share_prices_in_personal_plus_h...

  • Neil Donaldson_7013818
    Neil Donaldson_7013818 Member Posts: 19
    edited December 2015
    Many thanks John - i have found a .qph file in my AppData/Local/Temp folder - it is 870kb in size so this would suggest some data of some size.  How does one get the program to access the data?
  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited February 2017

    Do you have a copy of the file with your database, in somewhere like:

     users > neil > documents > quicken > Qdata.qph 

    This is the default directory for your files in Windows 7 or 8 and where your database should be stored. (Files > Open should indicate this directory).  Your AppData/Local/Temp folder is not a likely place for your RPP database files. (You need to recover more than just the Qdata.QDF file when restoring. Qdata.rkn is a full backup file.)

    The program should automatically access the .qph file if it is in the correct directory. when the file is in the correct folder (although I would be cautious if it is not) I'd suggest you go to "Investing > Security Detail View" and look at some of the companies you expect to have data, then use Update > Edit Price History and see if there is any available data.

    Otherwise use Edit Security Details to see if there is something missing from the company details.

    There is a utility at reltan.com that can view the .qph file and report it as a text file. This would allow you to look at the data you have and see what might be the mismatch. It will report the company codes, if this is the source of your problem.

    good luck.

  • Neil Donaldson_7013818
    Neil Donaldson_7013818 Member Posts: 19
    edited February 2017
    I have established a different directory to which all backup files are kept and I can confirm that all the recent backups (.hcx, .qdf and .qph files) are maintained.  It is noted that after 1 Aug 2014 the .qph file size reduced to 1kb (from 870kb) in line with the 2013 software change date. Clearly the 2015 software has not been able to restore the historical data that existed before despite valid .qph files being in same directory.  When I select File>Open the necessary files are displayed.
    When i select "Download Historical Prices" I get a box that states 'Select the securities you want historical prices for (U.S. Securities only) - there is no choice of any listed Australian stocks.  I can confirm that I have the "Australian Edition" of Reckon Accounts Personal Plus 2015 Release R 1.  I can confirm the symbols used for the Ausutralian stocks are valid as they have not changed since the 2013 version of the software and they currently get the daily prices, but cannot get historical prices.

    H-E-L-P!!
  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited February 2017

    There have been others who have obtained a US version and you appear to have an Australian version that is configured for US Securities, which appears to have generated a new .QPH file.

    I don't know what has happened as I have remained with RPP 2013 and do my share price updates via a .csv file import. It appears my caution is warranted.

    Hopefully someone at Reckon will answer your questions as your installation of RPP 2015 does not appear to be working as would be expected. How could it default to US securities if it is a Reckon Australia update ?

    Maybe they should not have skipped the beta test phase ! We can only hope there was at least an alpha phase. Given the only change appears to have been the url of the new download site what could they stuff up.

    Do you have a .rkn backup file from before the update to RPP 2015 that you can recover and see if it corrects the security settings ? 

    Alternatively you could go to the backup sub directory and see if any file sets are dated before the change-over and copy these files across, changing their names to the current active dataset. (make sure you copy the latest dataset to an alternative directory in case this fails.) I would do this as a file copy and not from inside RPP. Run RPP 2015 and see if the security information appears and if the default security type is now Australian. (No idea where this is set)

    John


  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited November 2016

    "Select the securities you want historical prices for (U.S. Securities only) "

    This might not be a problem as there is a difference between

    a) "Historical prices" of market indices ( Dow Jones and Nasdaq only) and

    b) Quotes for share price updates.

    There are actually 3 groups of data being downloaded:

    1. Quotes for listed share prices (ASX codes for a 7 day period)
    2. Historical Prices for market indexes (US indices for a longer period)

    3. Currency Exchange rates (for this date only)

    I sometimes do not get all 3 updating, but do not know what causes this problem. You should check that all 3 are being selected.

  • Neil Donaldson_7013818
    Neil Donaldson_7013818 Member Posts: 19
    edited December 2015
    In the "One Step Update Settings" there is a check box for 'Download stock & managed fund quotes' which has a further hyperlink to "Select Quotes". This hyperlink opens up a listing of all the Australian Stocks I have and they are all ticked to download online quotes.
    Other than manually downloading all the historical stock prices and then uploading them into PRR 2015, I don't see any automatic functionality.
    When you manually add share data to your RPP2013, what column headings do you use to match the import requirements?

    Many thanks
  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited November 2016

    Neil,

    You asked: "When you manually add share data to your RPP2013, what column headings do you use to match the import requirements?"

    The column headings and example of the .csv file format are in a comment above and described in more detail in the link. Note the volume is trade_volume/100.

    However I would recommend that you try and see if you can get the download to work as the manual generation of the .csv file is tedious if you don't have a program to do this automatically.

    Has RPP 2015 been blocked from accessing the net ?


  • Neil Donaldson_7013818
    Neil Donaldson_7013818 Member Posts: 19
    edited December 2015
    John

    You are a champ (no thanks to Reckon). Previous year share prices have been imported using the Reltan  QPH file processor utility (you would think Reckon would provide this functionality as part of its program but, alas, they seem to have a focus away from their customers).

  • John G
    John G Reckon Staff Posts: 1,570 Reckon Staff
    edited February 2017
    Thanks for your most helpful contribution John.

    To summarise a few points here on upgrades and Share Price History.

    Before upgrading we suggest creating a backup, which will, whether it be the old backup or the new Reckon backup (extension .rkn), keep your data file (extension .QDF) and all other ancillary files (share price history extension .QPH) together.

    When you install Reckon Accounts Personal Range 2015 you can access your data by 
    • opening the existing file from its existing location (your file will be upgraded the first time you open it); or
    • Restore your backup to another folder
    In the case where the .QPH file was missing after upgrading, then a search of your PC should locate it for you.  Then merely copy that file to your current folder to gain access to it again. 

    This was discussed in an earlier thread:  
    https://community.reckon.com.au/reckon/topics/lost_price_history_after_restore_from_previous_date.
    There is a KnowledgeBase article as well at:  http://kb.reckon.com.au/issue_view.asp?ID=3027

    Reckon Accounts Personal range does not, and never has, provided an historical database for Australian and New Zealand securities.  It does have access to an historical database for US securities.  The Download Historical Prices module clearly states that only US securities are available.  

    That Personal Plus 2015 created a new QPH file meant that a QPH file did not exist in the same folder as the datafile you were using.  Why it wasn't there is a matter of reviewing the steps taken against the ideal steps in an upgrade.  As this issue is not widespread, the failure to restore a QPH file is not an endemic problem with the software.


    regards,

    John


  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited February 2017

    John,

    I looked at the KnowledgeBase article you referred to. I don't think the author of this article is an informed user of QPP. How would I go with Method 2, when I have over 280,000 price records stored in my QPH file! I think something more helpful should be provided than this little gem. A better designed .csv import and export facility would certainly help.

    When the Download Historical Prices module was first introduced there were a number of ASX market indices provided, including the All Ords, ASX 200, ASX 100 and ASX 50. I have ASX 100 prices stored from 23/8/2000 to 16/11/2006, when they stoped being provided with QPP 2007.

    There is a widespread problem with QPP users of missing share price data, because of the limited ~7-day storage time of available price data from the download site. This is an endemic problem with the software and a solution should be addressed.

    I have actually used a dump of Currency exchange rates, which provides a useful time stamp of the days that I did a share price update. Using Tools > Currency List > Historical Rates to print/export the values, I can then calculate the day spacing of these updates. By presenting as a histogram, this provides a good indication of how often I missed share price data over the years of this service. I am sure many others could report a similar problem.

  • Brian_7091946
    Brian_7091946 Member Posts: 26 ✭✭
    edited September 2014
    John,
    As the QDF file is a old Reckon it should be easier to load this data than it is. I have just upgraded to Accounts Personal Plus Reckon 2015 and I have the same problem with historic share data not being uploaded. On reflection it could be that I uploaded the QDF file instead of the rkn one. As I have just loaded the data I tried to do a restore from my rkn file but the system will not let me do this as it keeps defaulting to a QDF file for backup and will not let me change to the rkn one.. Is there a way to overcome this?
    When this did not work I tried to copy and paste the QPH file into the new Reckon programme. This opened up my Reckon software and put me through a box question session which did not solve the problem. Would appreciate your comments.

  • Neil Donaldson_7013818
    Neil Donaldson_7013818 Member Posts: 19
    edited December 2015
    Brian I experienced similar issues. As per John's suggestion I downloaded the Reltan software than will convert QPH data into a CSV format and then used the import function in the investment area of RPP2015 - File>Import. Make sure the column headings align with the software requirements (check comments in this topic). Hope this helps Neil
  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited November 2016

    Brian,

    In early July, I installed RPP 2013 on a new computer and recovered my database using a .rkn file.

    Alternatively, if you have the five(?) files that are for example in the backup sub-directory, you may be able to copy them to another area and open them as an alternative database, rather than do a restore. The backup directory stores copies of the database files, which can be copied to the main data storage area and preferably renamed. Since the introduction of the .rkn backup format file, I don't think you can substitute these for a .rkn backup file and do a recover operation in RPP.

    Your description of your problem suggests there was a problem with restoring from a file that was not a .rkn backup.

    The reltan software allows you to get a text copy of what is in the .qph file, which you can import into Excel and reformat to a valid .csv file (described previously and in knowledge area) to import into RPP. I have not created a .qph file from scratch but have used the .csv import to add price records, or use my own version of Reltan to modify existing price records.

    If you are missing the .qph file, I would suspect it could be repopulated by this .csv file via the import price facility.

    Again, I have not used RPP 2015 to experience the problems being reported. I thought the only change was to change the address of the download site, but this problem may be one of the other enhancements that were alluded to.

    John


  • Brian_7091946
    Brian_7091946 Member Posts: 26 ✭✭
    edited September 2014
    Thanks for your comments. As I have only just restored the data from a back up file that must have been a QDF file, I do not understand why Reckon will now not let me cancel this restore and replace it with a restore of a rkn file. From everyones comments it would appear that this would bring in the share data. Reckon will only let me restore from a QDF file not a rkn file. As a result if I need to restore in future I will have the same problem in losing share history data. Seems to me that Reckon are making things more difficult that they need be and that to be able to restore the rkn file in my backup would be the best solution. I have even tried to copy and rename the rkn file to QDF, but reckon will not accept this as a restore. 
    Niel I can not find Reltan sftware listed, when I google it, it defaults to Rental Sofware.
  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited November 2016

    http://www.reltan.com/

    This will give you a listing of all price records, that you can import into excel and reformat. There can be non-price records included, so check the "priceok" field.

    This will allow you to import all price records into RPP using the extended .csv format.

    "share,Close,---,Date,---,High,Low,volume,*"
    amc,7.35,---,24/02/2006,---,7.46,7.32,63712,*

    Note that volume is provided as volume /100 and this value is limited to 200000, which limits all imported volumes to 20,000,000 which is exceeded about 1% of the time, which are typically significant days for trading in these stocks.

  • John G
    John G Reckon Staff Posts: 1,570 Reckon Staff
    edited December 2016

    Hi Brian, Neil, John,

    Thanks for the concerns you have raised. 

    Here is an overview of the backup process.

    Traditionally Quicken backed up all your files, QDF and other ancillary files including QPH, into a separate directory.  When you restored a backup it restored all files from that directory.

    In Reckon  Accounts Personal Range 2013 a new backup file format was introduced - the .rkn.  This is a singular zipped file of all the RAP files.  You now have the choice of creating a back traditionally or through the new .rkn.

    As the backup folder contained the exact files from your working set, often users would take just the QDF file  and not the entire folder across to the new location or PC for their upgraded version.  Ancillary information is missing.  As the functions are used for the first time and ancillary files do not exist, new ones are created.   So users who have done this think that their share price history has been deleted. 

    The new backup file - the .rkn - avoids this situation. 

    So if you are missing share price history after an upgrade, search your PC for .QPH files.  The one with the latest date is the file you need.  Copy it across to your new directory next to your .QDF file. 

    Hope this helps finding your share price history.


    regards,
    John

  • Neil Donaldson_7013818
    Neil Donaldson_7013818 Member Posts: 19
    edited December 2015
    Brian The website is http://www.reltan.com Regards Neil
  • Brian_7091946
    Brian_7091946 Member Posts: 26 ✭✭
    edited September 2014
    H John G,Neil & John,
    Your suggestions sounds relatively easy but when I tried it the system went into a Reckon blank screen that had a box saying
    "Welcome to Reckon Accounts" there are then two statements with a box to tick- "I am new to Reckon Accounts" or I am already a Reckon user" When you answer to each question and get to the end you have to then open the file. I have not done this as something seems wrong.
    Why does this happen and why is it not as simple as you say?
    Could you give screen dumps showing what should happen so I can compare?
    To go back to my original email that John and Neil gave another solution, why can I not just restore from the rkn file and overwrite the QDF file? Why does Reckon make me use a QDF file which does not give me the share history I need? Why did REckon accept the QDF file in the first place, why did it not give a warning to use the rkn file?
    Would the easy solution be to just now give me a new 2015 version and start again and see if that works? It is very unfair that Reckon put this issue on the Community to work out and does not show a solution with the suggested screen dumps.

  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited November 2016

    Brian,

    I agree with your sentiment. Does Reckon have an explanation for your problem ? They should !

    My recommendation would be to:

    1) identify a good .rkn backup file that you can restore,

    2) then try to delete everything else related to reckon from your system

    3) do a clean install of RPP 2015 (with admin rights) then

    4) recover from the preserved .rkn file

    If that fails, could you re-install RPP 2013 and confirm you have a valid database recovered, then uninstall RPP 2013 and install RPP 2015, with the valid database present and see if RPP 2015 can access the existing database.

    If you don't have a useable .rkn backup, do you have a complete set of files in a directory, where you can open once the RPP 201? has been installed ? I would expect this to work also.

    ( I can't be sure of this as I don't do this process often. The only time I have to regenerate the database is when I shift to a new pc, which I did do successfully with RPP 2013 in July)


  • Neil Donaldson_7013818
    Neil Donaldson_7013818 Member Posts: 19
    edited December 2015
    Brian In regard to your query about the TWO dialogue boxes that appear when you first log on to the software asking if you are a new client and then asking for then asking for a file location - I have also regularly received this message and just gone through the process, however, it is getting frustrating and not something you expect from software that you have to pay for. I would also welcome feedback on a permanent solution to this issue. It seems that we are the beta testers for the software and the community is the resolution. Come on Reckon - your quality control seems to be on a downward spiral. Neil
  • Brian_7091946
    Brian_7091946 Member Posts: 26 ✭✭
    edited September 2014
    Neil & John, thanks for all your help in trying to sort things out. As John G's solution seemed easy I tried it before your fix suggestion. It's just a great pity that Reckon appear incapable of sorting out their own software problems or helping idiots like me.
    To put it simply John G's solution does not work on my system.  I got the 2015 Reckon as the free download to fix the problem of not getting live stock quotes. I do not have a disc to fall back on.
    What is frustrating is that after going though the answers in the Reckon boxes to install the QPH file, after copy and pasting and then trying to open the file I get back to square one as the default file box will only open a QDF file. I can not open the QPH file that John G says will solve my problem. I may be simple but surely the solution would be for Reckon PP to allow me to pull in the rkn file as a restore to overwrite the QDF file. It also now appears that the problem is worse as my Reckon QPH files have been converted to ADOBE emblems, which meand they may no longer be Reckon files.
    I also note that John G has not supplied the requested screen dumps for the process that I am supposed to see when carrying out his fix. 
  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited November 2016

    Brian,

    When doing a restore, you should be able to choose either a .QDF or a .RKN extension. If you choose the .qdf extension, ie choosing \tree\xxxx.qdf, I thought the restore assumed that all seven \tree\xxxx.* files should exist in the same directory, including xxxx.qph.

    The only time I might have done a restore was when I have changed computer.

    As far as I know, you don't have to do a restore at all, if you have a complete set of xxxx.* files. You can just open the xxxx.qdf file and RPP assumes that all other files are present. You could copy (say) qdata04.* from the backup directory to the quicken directory and use file > open. First confirm you have a valid qdata04.qph file and see if this works. ( I would not open the qdata04.qdf in the backup directory )

    This problem does not make sense to me ! I am thinking there is something else going wrong. You need to confirm that the 7 xxxx.* files are a consistent set of files.

    John

  • Brian_7091946
    Brian_7091946 Member Posts: 26 ✭✭
    edited September 2014
    Thanks John, the problem appears to be fixed. I normally keep 3 backups in my backup folder. When Reckon sent the 2015 RPP upgrade my back up, before installing 2015RPP, also went into the same back up folder, so I had 4 backups in that folder. I also had other Reckon files, with the different file extensions in that folder. Based on what you said I opened a new backup folder and cut and pasted the last RPP 2015 backups and files to the new folder, so there was only that backup in that folder. I then went into Reckon and opened up the QDF file. When I then checked the shares the historic data had now been restored. Thanks again for the solution.
  • Waynep
    Waynep Member Posts: 3
    edited September 2014
    When I upgraded my RPP from 2013 version to 2015 version I restored the data from a backed up .rkn file. The share price history was all there.
    However when I renamed the data file ( which you can do from File Operations ) the historical share price data disappeared. The new QPH file has only a few kb of data whereas the old QPH file still had a lot of data.
    So I manually renamed the old .QPH file to same name as the new data file, and the historical share price info has all returned.
    A point on renaming files, if you try to rename a file with an underscore in it appears that the Reckon File Rename tool can no longer find the file.
    Reckon will always add an underscore if you backup with the option to append the date. After you restore a file you would normally want to rename the file to remove that appendage, but alas you now cannot. The only option is to NOT use the date appendage if you want to rename the file after restoring. Then after renaming do another restore of the old file and rename the QPH file. Simple huh ! NOT

  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited February 2017

    I do not know why this problem is occurring. All I can think of is that:

    * the .qph file you were transferring has a different name to that being expected by RPP 2015, or

    * you have copied it to the wrong directory.

    Look at the file menu in RPP 2015 and see what name and directory is being used for your database.

    What is the size of your qdata.qph file ?

    Have you changed or added any company codes since transferring to the new computer, which could generate a mis-match in the expected record structure of the .qph file.

  • Neil Donaldson_7013818
    Neil Donaldson_7013818 Member Posts: 19
    edited December 2015
    I have now imported actual historical data for my share portfolios.  The data that I have imported is Date, Open, High, Low, Close and Volume. To this I have added the share symbol.  This data has been saved as a .csv file format and edited to remove the intra-day prices. When the data is imported I only get the date, open and close - no volume is imported. The column headings I have used in the csv spreadsheet are:
    Symbol
    Date
    Day Open
    Day Close
    Volume

    Can volume be imported?

    Thanks

  • John Campbell
    John Campbell Member Posts: 193 ✭✭
    edited November 2016

    Neil,

    You must use the layout of 9 fields as shown, including fields 3, 5 and 9, with field 8 being volume/100, eg:

    amc,7.35,---,24/02/2006,---,7.46,7.32,63712,*

    I have no information on the reason for these 3 fields or what they mean, but if I generate this format in excel and export as a .csv file it works as required.

    I was not aware that RPP would recognise column headings so I suspect it doesn't.

    There may be alternatives for fields 3, 5 or 9 but Quicken/Reckon have never provided this information. Even getting this layout information took me about 3 years of repeated asking.

    Volume /100 and the limit of Volume < 20 million is quite restrictive, which Reckon are yet to acknowledge. Difficult to understand why !! They must share the same customer relations training as telecommunications companies and loss making airlines.

    John

  • Donna Wilson_7333889
    Donna Wilson_7333889 Member Posts: 1
    edited January 2015
    I downloaded the Rekon personal plus trial last month and performed regular backups. My computer had issues and I ended up having to reinstall windows. So I downloaded the trial again and when I went to load my backup file it was looking for a .qdf file, my back ups were saved as a .rkn file so I ended up clicking new user and skipping the setup and then went to load back up in the file menu and it allowed me to import other file types so I was able to import my backup files. Hope this helps someone with the same problem I had.