Porseries program shutting down while preparing a return

My advice until these network problems get resolved is to fall in love with the F10 key. Wear it out.

Thanks so much and I have been wearing it out all morning. It seems to help.

Take a look at the UNRECOVERABLE ERROR thread. I gave up trying to get a fix. I received an email from ProSeries yesterday that they may have a bead on the problem and should have an update soon. Don't waste your time trying to contact tech support. All you'll get is frustration.

I've begun experiencing these intermittent shutdowns more frequently during return preparation. So far they're a not so minor annoyance, but I'm living with them mainly by saving the return often. When it happens, the little window pops up asking that I forward the technical data to ProSeries (?), but I always blow by that. Maybe we should start sending that in. It might help them fix it.

Intuit should give each of us a free shirt that says Test Monkey on it. That's what I feel like. That's what we are.

Are you using Vista? I assume the "lack of memory" was due to Vista. With 2038 MB, I should not have "lack of memory". Very frightening. I am learning to warn the client, keep hitting save and to turn off the computer to clear the memory while I'm at lunch.

No, I'm using Win XP Pro, standalone (not networked). The sudden shutdowns are really intermittent and so far I haven't found a pattern to when ProSeries will just all of a sudden shutdown. I would estimate it happens maybe once with every 3rd client so the program remains useable so long as I keep saving the return every minute or so. I've been using ProSeries for 15 years, and of course all computers will freeze up occasionally with any program. But this year's ProSeries Professional seems to be extra high-maintenance. I just keep tickling that F10 key.

I am using windows xp. Yesterday I did use the F10 and saved the return often. It did help.
I have used Proseries since 1994 except for the years we had the Express edition.
I had much fewer problems with the Express Edition.
I purchased Taxwise last May and trained all summer only to find when I converted last years clients from Proseries to Taxwise a lot of the info did not flow.(mostly state info) What a waste of time and money. I love Proseries but they really need to fix this problem. Have you noticed we Proseries user have this every year and usually by Feb it is fixed. They need to do a lot more testing before January 1. Proseries also cost me a lot by telling me it is my system and I need to have my computer people come out and check it, then it always ends up being their software.
I wish tech support would at least be honest.

There's an old tech support rule that's been around for as long as there have been computers. When they're stumped or just don't care, the software people will always blame the hardware, the hardware people will always blame the software.

This is driving me nuts! Now I can't even open my program, I called support and have an estimated 30 minute wait

What in the world is going on?

When I had this error last week it was for a couple of reasons.

First, the homebase MUST be sync in 06/07. There is a homebase file that is generated on the client PC's and when I do my updates, I delete that file on the workstations, run the updates, and sync the database. When the errors started on one workstation, by the end of the day they were showing on 10-12 workstations and I went through this process.

Also, which is crazy, if you have ALL RETURNS selected at the top, you will get crazy errors! I reported this to PS support and let them know which area of the actually program to fix for this. They tested it online and said that it is a bug and setup a ticket for it. However, there has been nothing else from that!

I would suggest changing that to your 1040i etc...other than ALL RETURNS. Also, if you create custom views - expect errors (Fatal App,) until they correct that within the application.

James

Be also aware of another problem that I have learned to avoid. Since all of my 1040's are checked to efile, and a blank W2 cannot be efiled, one client's return continued to crash when I looked at the 1040 "error" that was appearing since the program kept trying to evaluate the W2 and efiling. There was no data since the return was not yet prepared. The software crashed and closed and all data I could input was lost.

I avoided this problem by not "looking" at the 1040 "error." I entered other data(EIC applicability, child living at home 12 mos, etc.) without the W2 info until she came in. I saved often. Then when she came in I completed the W2 and the "error' went away.

I do not know if it is still a problem but it is a glitch that should be fixed, among others.

It happens to me also only when you click on the 1040 form. Do not click on the 1040 form unless you have saved all your info. Hopefully they will have a fix soon.

TURBO TAX

i think that's where their money comes from

we compete with the company that makes our tax program and get terrible tech support
these are just my thoughts though

Daniellwolf, I recall you here last year when we were having the same problem. I finally got a referal to the 'office of the president'. I also tried to go to Taxwise. They got my money, and I had problems with them and their support also. I came back. If we can all find a way to come at Intuit in a unified manner, they WILL RESPOND! What I don't know right now is how to do a SACK. To believe that waiting for them to act is like a man sitting in the desert waiting for someone to bring him water. What do you think will happen to him? Begnign(sp) neglect is not going to get us what we need. I have not had any crashes yet, but I expect to. My software is taking an awful long time to load this year. That has been my big proplem. The DMS seems to have some improvements. Good Luck All!

Thank you for providing us the feedback on the challenges you?ve been having with ProSeries. As the group product manager for ProSeries, I assure you that we take this seriously and apologize for the frustration it has caused.

We have identified the reason for the ProSeries program shut down and related printing and HomeBase error messages. It was caused by a defect in the printing feature and was resolved in the January 24th 1040 update. We sincerely apologize for this problem and will be working to ensure it does not occur in the future.

I encourage each of you to get daily product updates through the Task Scheduler feature so that you are always using the version of ProSeries with all of the latest improvements.

This season, we have also made improvements to our HomeBase tune-up and Re-sync database features. I encourage you to use these features when you are experiencing performance issues - especially if you have over 1,000 clients. Within the next two weeks, we will be releasing a new feature to help you maintain your large database.

In order to stay up to date on the latest status updates regarding issues you have encountered - please click on the link below. We have a team of people who are working extremely hard to address your concerns and provide timely product updates:

http://www.proseries.com/suppo...

I'd also like to thank all of you for providing us feedback about your support experirence. We are committed to providing our customers with a great support experience. The examples you've provided will be reviewed by a number of people on my team. This feedback is an important input into driving improvements and we thank you for your willingness to share it.

Regards,

Kathy Kirkendall

Group Product Manager, ProSeries

Intuit Inc.

I don't think this issue had been completely resolved. My employer called this morning to let me know the program had shutdown three times for no apparent reason. That's why I was reading this post.

We are in a networked environment (file server, GB network switch, and 7 relatively new PC's) and compared to other posts, have had relatively few problems but now I am wondering if I will see more. The PC this happened on has 2GB's of memory and is a new Dell as of Jan 1 2008. We update the program daily via Task Scheduler.

I do not intend to spend more time trying to resolve this issue unless we start experiencing more down time, but thought I'd let you know it doesn't appear to be completely fixed yet.

Yes, to be specific, when I have run the Final Review, and then the question(s) of prior tax year pop up. As I go through the questions, when I get near the last few the program shuts down on me and sometimes I loose all that data.