Vanguard/QFX Issues with Upgrade

[aril]

Hi all,

I've happily been using MS Money since the end of 2000. For the last years, importing QFX's from Vanguard has been no issue. I recently upgrade my machine and went from Win10 to 11. Now I try to import a QFX and after doing its cursor-working-on-it icon, Money just closes.  I'm using Plus Deluxe, version 17.0.120.3817 (which is the same version I had on the previous machine).

I took care of the patched DLL; made the appropriate (but likely irrelevant) registry changes; even tried an online tool for cleaning up QFXs; but nothing has worked. (Thankfully, I also found the online fix - via the registry - for getting out of the loop where Money restarts and tries reopening the killer QFX...)

The last Vanguard download that I tried (and worked) on my old machine was from about 2-3 months ago.

Any ideas? Is it Vanguard? Is it me? Did I forget to patch or change or do something?

I can't imagine having to start over with a new program after 25 years, but this manual entry is so painful.

Thank you! 

Aril

[Bill & Michelle Becker]

Aril,

Quicken users are reporting a problem with Vanguard QFX files that started around 11/25/25 per this website:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7968541/qfx-import-broken-after-update-to-r65-17

I didn't read thru all the posts, but I gather that Vanguard did something that made the QFX file invalid to Quicken.

One thing that you could look at is a program that converts QFX to OFX:

https://github.com/jtg-github/ConvertToOFX

I have no experience with this. Maybe some group members can comment.

Bill Becker

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Microsoft Money" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to microsoft-mon...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/microsoft-money/c8c3bcc2-0255-4ff9-9c35-1cc5c17f2100n%40googlegroups.com.

[Cal Learner]

Decided to check out the Vanguard situation being discussed. While the Vanguard web page had changed, I was able to download a Vanguard QFX. I checked that it still has the bug of treating non-mutual funds as mutual funds.

I used the patching method described in https://groups.google.com/g/microsoft-money/c/tUVD6SZsn8I/m/XQA6Ca1IAAAJ

When I opened the resulting ModOut.ofx I got some kind of crash of Money. While I think that was coincidence, I cannot be sure. 

I took several steps... reboot. reinstall (and re-patch) Money. Had it try to open sample.mny rather than my actual file. Money always came up and crashed back within a few seconds. Booted to safe mode. Same problem.

What worked is to open Money as a different user. So my current theory is that my regular user is corrupted somehow... I expect to dig in to dealing with a corrupted Windows 11 user tomorrow... feeling not sharp tonight.

[N G]

For Cal:

I've had this issue in testing with wine where a corrupt ofx/qfx import corrupts my mny file. I even tried deleting import files in the temp directories in my user profile but it didn't work. I think I always had to go back to a backup.

As for the Vanguard qfx file I'm seeing this:

<OFX>
<SIGNONMSGSRSV1>
<SONRS>
<STATUS>
<CODE>0
<SEVERITY>INFO
<MESSAGE>Successful Sign On
</STATUS>
<DTSERVER>20251128023253[-5:EST]
<LANGUAGE>ENG
<DTPROFUP>20140605083000
<FI>
<ORG>Vanguard
<FID>15103</FI>
<SESSCOOKIE>7ff86cb4-c04e-4808-a7fb-ancdefg123445
<INTU.BID>15103
<INTU.USERID>xxxxxxxxx
</SONRS>
</SIGNONMSGSRSV1>

What stands out is that there are many missing closing tags, such as </CODE>, </SEVERITY>, </DTSERVER>, </LANGUAGE>, etc.

My ofx files from PenFed are the same version:

OFXHEADER:100
DATA:OFXSGML
VERSION:102
SECURITY:NONE
ENCODING:USASCII
CHARSET:1252
COMPRESSION:NONE
OLDFILEUID:NONE
NEWFILEUID:NONE

but PenFed has all the closing tags.

I'm still working through to see if I can get Money to accept it.
Not sure if there's more to it than this.

[Bob Smiley]

OFX version 1.02 was SGML, not HTML. Any data item did not have a closing tag. Only groupings have and ending tag.

You must have the correct header for it to work, including a blank line after the NEwFILEUID liine.

[N G]

I can confirm there is blank line after NEWFILEUID:NONE

[aril]

Cal: I ran into a  repeated death crash after trying to import the bad QFX. I found the solution (for me, at least) in a superuser post that suggested a simple regedit key deletion. (Basically, you delete the key that tells Money to automatically import a tmp file on start up.) Look at the second suggestion in the first answer here:
https://superuser.com/questions/1591861/how-to-fix-issue-when-importing-a-bad-ofx-file-into-microsoft-money-sunset

All: So glad to hear from Bill that it's likely a Vanguard issue! At least there's hope that there will be a fix since it's not just an MS Money problem. If anyone figures out a way to manually fix the files, that'd be great. (Bill - I'll try that converter when I get back home.)

Thank you, all!

Aril

ב-יום שישי, 28 בנובמבר 2025 בשעה 06:51:56 UTC+2, gia...@gmail.com כתב/ה:

[N G]

Thanks for the link! Very helpful!

[aril]

Happily!

I just tried a different download time-window from Vanguard where there no transactions, just account balance checks and price updates (INVPOS & INVBAL [caveat, I'm no expert at OFX/QFX, just a tinkerer]). Imported into Money without a problem. So either something was fixed, or the previous download caught some malformatted code. I'll keep an eye on it and report back if anything comes up.

Thanks again!

Aril

ב-יום שישי, 28 בנובמבר 2025 בשעה 10:45:48 UTC+2, gia...@gmail.com כתב/ה:

[Cal Learner]

Aril: This was extremely useful. Rather than work with RegEdit, I was able to locate a file in the temp folder that had about the same timestamp as the occurrence of the problem. I kept a copy, and deleted that file using a command window that I had opened "as administrator.  I confirmed the timestamp and file contents were identical to the OFX that I had imported.

When I opened Money, it did a quick repair on its own (which it had been doing before the crashes), and gave me a communications error popup. I think this is because Money did not find the temp file.
I went head and opened my real file, rather than a copy of sample.mny, and that worked too.

Now is the file itself poison? Not sure yet...  I find that OFX analyze shows a flaw that is present in the downloaded file and also in my scrubbed version.  I have done further tests. I think it is best that I post this interim info, and I later expect to post more extensive results, and I hope a fix.

[Trayo dashi]

I have had no issue installing MS Money on 64 bit new Windows 11 laptop, it ran and opened my money file that I have had since over 25 years now (US version). I have used xl2qif to import checking and credit card statements but have not had success to import investment transactions and have painfully done it manually. I really need to find something that works and will look for some suggestion from knowledgeable group here. I track each investment transactions so it has cash and investment accounts. I enter dividend reinvestment as one investment transactions, using activity as "reinvest dividend" with correct quantity and total amount and let money calculate the price. 

If there is any took or process I can use to import downloaded csv or other means would be welcome so I dont have to do this work manually. 

Thank you  

[Cal Learner]

TLDR: troubleshooting thoughts not of general interest...

I found OFX Analyze did not like "<INCOMETYPE>REINVEST". The allowed INCOMETYPE values are.:

• CGLONG L-Term Cap Gains Dist

• CGSHORT S-Term Cap Gains Dist

• DIV Dividend

• INTEREST Interest

• MISC Other Expense

So I guess my scrubber could convert any "<INCOMETYPE>REINVEST" to "<INCOMETYPE>OTHER" OR "<INCOMETYPE>DIV". In my case, DIV would have been appropriate. There is a "<MEMO>DIVIDEND REINVESTMENTDIVIDEND REINVESTMENT" element in the <REINVEST>...</REINVEST> entry, so I guess I guess if the MEMO contains "DIVIDEND", use DIV, if "LONG" then CGLONG, and if "SHORT" then CGSHORT. I don't have old Vanguard MEMOS for those. I only have old Vanguard OFX files that have dividend, and no instance of reinvestment of CG.

I don't think that should cause a poison OFX, and I have not loaded a Vanguard OFX since I got Money working again.

So why do I even have old OFX instances to check? I have had my batch file that I use to invoke Pocketsense save downloaded copies of OFX files since 03/14/2024 and Vanguard worked with Pocketsense last worked 02/15/2025. Janus and Fidelity are still working great.

[Cal Learner]

CONFIRMED!  If I downloaded the problem OFX file, it caused repeated crashing until I deleted that file from the TEMP. I had expected my problem was only coincidence with downloading and opening the Vanguard file (which sends the file to Money in my configuration).  Opening the fixed file worked fine. I renamed the problem file and the fixed file to what I thought appropriate names.  I then did a windows file compare (fc) to check that that was the only difference. Here is a screen snip of that:

---------------------------------------------------------

C:>fc  ModOut_hope1.ofx ModOut_poison_REINVEST.ofx
Comparing files ModOut_hope1.ofx and MODOUT_POISON_REINVEST.OFX
***** ModOut_hope1.ofx
</SECID>
<INCOMETYPE>DIV
<TOTAL>-0.44
***** MODOUT_POISON_REINVEST.OFX
</SECID>
<INCOMETYPE>REINVEST
<TOTAL>-0.44
*****
---------------------------------------------------------------

I expect to revise my scrubber at some point to deal with this. I am glad that my scrubber did not introduce the poison, but only passed it on.

[Bill & Michelle Becker]

Cal,

Last year I had the same "Poison OFX" experience that you and others have reported. I downloaded a .csv file of investment transactions from Schwab and converted it with ICreateOFX to what should have been a valid OFX file. Instead, It caused Money to start to open and then crash. It took me a while to figure out the "Poisoned" registry entry caused by the OFX file. Once I deleted it, Money started working again.

Since it may be helpful to others, I've attached a screenshot of the registry with the "Poisoned" entry highlighted. 

Deleting this entry will allow Money to start. 

In the case of Schwab downloads, the malformed OFX is caused by an interest transaction in the Schwab cash account. The date field is "date as of date" instead of just "date" and the bank name has too many characters.  There is a scrubber for that but I just clean it up manually.  Before importing the OFX file, I also run it through the Money OFXAnalyzer

https://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/ofx-file-analzer/

Better safe than seriously annoyed!

Bill Becker

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Microsoft Money" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to microsoft-mon...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/microsoft-money/f3fdeb76-7578-4089-a3bf-1966fbf1e419n%40googlegroups.com.

[Cal Learner]

Updated https://groups.google.com/g/microsoft-money/c/tUVD6SZsn8I/m/XQA6Ca1IAAAJ thread with pointer to download the newer vofx4. zip. This included the replacement Scrub_CL7.py which has been modified to address the Vanguard bug discussed in this thread.

New 2025/11/28 public link is https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H2YOtQdI4kWOSpjHGooGNBpiTI83vvZ0/view?usp=sharing 

The link to download the vofx3b.zip version will be deactivated. If anybody tries it, please post on this or the other thread.

[N G]

Cal,

Confirmed <INCOMETYPE>REINVEST is the problem for me.

I found a vanguard ofx in an old pocketsense xfr folder that had  multiple <INCOMETYPE>DIV instead, and no <INCOMETYPE>REINVEST existing in that file.

Thanks again to Aril for the tip on the registry/temp file location, it's great that we all got a little bit smarter.

[J Hoban]

The three memo lines in my file:

<MEMO>DIVIDEND REINVESTMENTDIVIDEND REINVESTMENT

<MEMO>DIV REINVEST ST CAP GAIN

<MEMO>DIV REINVEST LT CAP GAIN

[Cal Learner]

Thanks.

I was  not sure, so I hedged my guesses. Here are some lines from my latest scrubber:

        if 'DIV' in memo: income_type='DIV'
        elif 'LONG' in memo or  'LT' in memo or  'L-T' in memo: income_type='CGLONG'
        elif 'SHORT' in memo or  'ST' in memo or  'S-T' in memo: income_type='CGSHORT'
        else: income_type='MISC'
        print ("correcting <INCOMETYPE>REINVEST to <INCOMETYPE>"+income_type)

[Bob Galloway]

I think Vanguard has fixed this issue as of 12/2/2025. I was able to successfully download a month of transactions.

[Cal Learner]

I think Vanguard has fixed this issue as of 12/2/2025. I was able to successfully download a month of transactions.

Bob: Having read your post, I tried and agree that they fixed the recent problem. Thanks.

The earlier bug, where they show everything a mutual fund (MF) rather than showing ETFs as STOCK which Money would expect, is still there. So the scrubber described in https://groups.google.com/g/microsoft-money/c/tUVD6SZsn8I/m/i_TbP9OqBgAJ could still be useful. But at least that one does not crash Money.