The original workaround was to force QuickBooks to open without opening any windows that you left open in the program. You would double-click on the QuickBooks icon while holding down the ALT key – QuickBooks would start up without opening any windows. The problem (in this case) had to do with the “Home Page” window being opened – in some situations this would cause the program to crash.
Now we have a better fix, with a patch that Intuit is pushing out.
If you have updated to QuickBooks 2012 R14 and you get an “unrecoverable error” when opening the file:
- Start QuickBooks by double-clicking on the QuickBooks icon while holding down the CTRL key. Note, this is NOT the “ALT” key as before. QuickBooks will not open a company file if you start this way, you’ll get the “No Company Open” screen.
- Select Help from the main menu.
- Select Update QuickBooks from the Help menu.
- Click the Update Now tab.
- Make sure that the “New Features” option in the list has a check mark by it (others can be checked, that doesn’t matter).
- Click the Get Updates button.
- Once the update is complete, close QuickBooks.
This should resolve the problem and you will be able to open your company file.
Intuit has multiple methods of sending out updates.
- We have the normal “R-level” updates (like R14) that are delivered through the Update feature, and that can also be manually updated by downloading a “web patch” file. You can tell this has been installed by pressing F2 in QuickBooks and looking at the revision information.
- We have the “critical fix” updates, also called “ULIP” updates, which are also delivered through the Update feature. You don’t have a “web patch” for this that you can share to other computers. You can’t tell if these have been installed, you can only tell if these have been downloaded to your system (you will see info in the F2 screen). These are only available in QuickBooks 2013 and later (see this article).
- We have what are called “Off Cycle Delivery” (or OCD, perhaps an unfortunate choice of initials) updates, which are delivered through the Update feature. Again, you don’t have a “web patch” file you can share with other users. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell if this has been installed or even downloaded. This mechanism is used most often for sending out “silent” fixes, most commonly used for smaller Payroll updates.
In this case, the fix for the 2012 R14 problem is being pushed out as an OCD patch. You have to go through all those steps to get the update mechanism to work, without first opening your QuickBooks company file.
See this Intuit support article for details.
This post was written by Charlie Russell.