Critical Alert for all QuickBooks 2013 Users!
QuickBooks 2013 R7 was released on June 4th and there is a serious bug that will likely affect most of our clients. If you haven’t already installed the R7 Update – I would strongly recommend that you do NOT install it at this time! If you’ve downloaded it, but not installed it, please ignore the message asking you to install R7 when you open your file.
Most of our clients use at least one third-party add-on program, and sometimes more than one. The R7 bug is an ongoing issue that will likely cause your QuickBooks file to crash, or at the very least break the integration of your add-on programs. The bug may stop your add-on programs from running and/or crash your QuickBooks file.
I want to be very clear – the bug is NOT an issue with the 3rd party programs! It is a QuickBooks issue directly related to the R7 update!
The bug is associated with just about any third party program that works with the Windows desktop version of QuickBooks. If that application tries to select a menu option that asks for data from your QuickBooks file, QuickBooks will display an unrecoverable error window like the following:
When you close this window, QuickBooks will almost always close. The third party program will either freeze or lose connection with the QuickBooks database. It may display its own window with an error message.
If you do see this error message, you may be able to fix it; however we’ve heard of additional problems when attempting the ‘fixes’. We’ve provided several links so you can read about the possible fix, as well as additional information on what you may encounter.
Intuit has an article posted here: https://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/Support/Articles/SLN74717
A few other good articles/posts for additional information:
https://www.sunburstsoftwaresolutions.com/urgent.htm
https://www.sleeter.com/blog/2013/06/quickbooks-2013-r7-bug-still-a-problem/
If you decide to attempt any of the ‘fixes’ mentioned in ANY article – be VERY careful and be sure to read everything carefully! As you will see, there is a warning about applying the manual DLL patch.
**We are not advocating any manual fix without consulting Intuit or a professional. Our goal is to warn our customers and provide information and possible solutions.**
In general, updating your QuickBooks is a good idea; however as with any update there is a risk. You may want to opt for manual updates so you can control what, and when, updates will deployed in your environment. I typically recommend updating QuickBooks, especially new versions because they tend to be buggy when they first come out. However I want to control them – so I tend to opt for manual updating. 🙂
If you are running 2013 and you are not sure which release you have, press the F2 key (with QuickBooks open) and you will see your product information displayed. You can see that I am running Enterprise R6P (QuickBooks Accountant 2013); the ‘+U’ has to do with ‘critical fixes’ that is new with the 2013 version – it’s a way for Intuit to push out patches quickly without going through the normal update route. You may or may not see anything beyond R6 (or R1, etc.)
If you are running any version of QuickBooks prior to 2013 – this does NOT apply to you.
Unfortunately 3rd party programs are not the only problem with R7, so everyone should be VERY careful and hold off if they haven’t already installed this.
We will keep everyone posted.
To clarify one thing, Roxanne, as far as add-on products this bug is limited to certain features that they might or might not use. The problem occurs when the add-on updates or queries the employee list, or asks for a copy of the item list. Outside of that, probably no problem. Of course, since the item list is so essential to MANY functions in QuickBooks, many add-on products will use that.
Intuit tech support is generally recommending that R7 users who have any of these problems (and there are several problems with R7 beyond the issue of add-on products) roll back to R6 for the time being.
Thanks very much Charlie, I appreciate the additional information.
Great article Rox! Yes, there are certainly a LOT of issues with the R7 release. In addition to the problems when a 3rd party app querying the Employee list and Item list, as Charlie mentioned, we’ve seen the problem surface when querying the Payroll Item list as well.
I also have one machine where I get the “unrecoverable error” when trying to update QuickBooks!
It’s a tough time for all of us at the moment.
Thanks so much for sharing all with the awesome info! I am looking forward to checking out far more posts! gfeefkkefegg
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