Category: General Support

Invalid Serial Number

Sometimes a user will have difficulty when trying to register a CCRSoftware product. There are a number of different error messages or situations that you may run into. Let’s show you what might be going on.

Different Registration Systems

To start with, there are two different registration systems that are used to register CCRSoftware products, depending on what version of the program you are installing. The serial number for one system won’t work with the other system. Sometimes a user may install a version that doesn’t match the serial number that they have.

For CCRQInvoice versions 3.0.0.1 to 3.5.5 and CCRQBOM versions 3.0.4 to 3.6.0 the serial number will have the format “XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX”, 4 groups of 5 letters/numbers. For these versions you will see this kind of registration screen:

For CCRQInvoice versions 3.6.0 to 3.7.0 and CCRQBOM version 4.0.0 the serial number will have the format “STD-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX-XXXX”, the letters “STD” followed by 2 groups of 5 letters/numbers, then 2 groups of 4 letters/numbers. For these versions you will see this kind of registration screen:

If you try to use a serial number that doesn’t match the version, you will either get a message along the line of “The serial number provided is invalid”, or you just won’t be able to enter the serial number.

TO RESOLVE THIS you want to download the proper version. Note that if you had a DIFFERENT version than what is listed below, you should contact our support department for compatibility (or upgrade) information.

I Already Have A License

This throws a lot of people off. Our documentation talks about this, briefly, but who reads documentation any more?

If you have a registration screen like this, and you are reinstalling the software, some people decide that they need to click the “I already have a license” link.

 

Please don’t – that link is misleading, it won’t do what you want. It will ask you for a license file (*.lic), and you won’t have one.

That link is used for a special situation when recovering a license on an existing computer, which won’t be your case (in fact, we’ve never had a user that needed to do this). Just go ahead and enter your name and the serial number in the regular field. If you don’t know your serial number, contact support.

The Serial Number Provided is Invalid

With the standard/public releases, when you enter the serial number, you may see this error:

There are a couple of reasons why you might see this.

Perhaps you have a typo in the serial number? 1968P-XXXXX-XXXXX-X04W3 is not the same as l968P-XXXXX-XXXXX-XO4W3. The numbers 1 and 0 are not the same as the letters l and O.

A common error is that you copy/paste the serial number from a document, or the original email you received, but you add a space to the end. “1968P-XXXXX-XXXXX-X04W3  ” is not the same as “1968P-XXXXX-XXXXX-X04W3” for example – there is an added space at the end of the first one, and the program doesn’t like that. Very common error.

Wrong Software Product

Last but not least, sometimes we have people who try to use a CCRQInvoice serial number with CCRQBOM, or vice-versa. Won’t work!

 

“Cannot save application settings” Error

If you see an error message similar to the following: (CCRQOrderParmCommon:5,0) Cannot save application settings – there are several  possible causes for the problem; Essentially, CCRSoftware programs store a parameter file named CCRQ.XML at a location that you specified (the “common location” or “common folder”). For some reason, either that location cannot be accessed or your Windows user account doesn’t have the proper permissions to access that location.

This is very similar to the error Cannot open/create a parameter file. Please refer to this article for details on how to correct the problem.

Cannot open this QuickBooks file. Did you just update QuickBooks?

A recent update to Windows 10 is causing problems with CCRSoftware programs. We are still trying to pin down the details.

You may see the following error when starting any CCRSoftware product on a recently updated Windows 10 system:

Note that some users have reported a different but similar error.

This is not a bug in the CCRSoftware product, it apparently has to do with a Windows 10 update that has damaged QuickBooks. Reinstalling the CCRSoftware product, or reinstalling QuickBooks, has no effect.

The only solution at this time is to roll back Windows 10 to a restore point earlier than approximately August 28, 2020. We don’t have an exact date at this time. This has solved the problem for everyone who has talked to us about this.

Note that there are other QuickBooks problems with this Windows update. For example, if you run certain financial reports (it may be any report, we haven’t tested that yet), you will get an unrecoverable error. Click any button, QuickBooks immediately closes.

No word from Intuit about this, yet.

Creating a QBSDK.LOG Diagnostic File

Error messages generated by QuickBooks itself can be very cryptic and vague. It isn’t always clear what the real issue is. In some cases, to diagnose a problem that a CCRSoftware product is running into, we need to see a more detailed log file that shows information about information being exchanged between QuickBooks and our product. This should only be done if we request it.

This log is created by QuickBooks, and is a different step than looking at the log file that CCRSoftware products create (see this article for that log file).

Setting up this log (QBSDK.LOG) requires a higher level of technical ability than some users may have.You may require Windows Admin level privileges.

  1. Exit QuickBooks.
  2. Look for a folder “c:\ProgramData\Intuit\QuickBooks”  Note that there are probably several similar ones, such as c:\ProgramData\Intuit\QuickBooks 2018” and others, but you want the specific one that I specified.
  3. In that folder you should see a file “qbsdk.ini” (it may be in all caps). Double click on the file to open it in a text editor.
  4. Add the following to the end of the file – note that if there ALREADY is a “log” section, you want to modify the existing one to match this, but odds are it won’t be there:
     [Log] 
                   Level=verbose 
                   UnlimitedSize=Y 
                   [Parser] 
                    DumpRequestData=Y
  5. Close and save the file.
  6. Reboot the computer.
  7. Run QuickBooks and open the CCRSoftware product. If the error occurs, exit the program.
  8. Close QuickBooks.
  9. Go back to the “c:\ProgramData\Intuit\QuickBooks”  folder. Locate the file “qbsdklog.txt”. Send that to our support team.
  10. When done, go back and edit the qbsdk.ini file
    1. Change the “Level” setting to “Level=info”
    2. Change the “DumpRequestData” setting to “DumpRequestData=N”
  11. Save the file.

Cannot open this QuickBooks Company (access permission)

There are several reasons why you may get an error saying  “Cannot open this QuickBooks Company”.  If you look at the details of the error message one of the common issues you will see is the following:

In this case, QuickBooks is returning an error to the CCRSoftware product saying that the QuickBooks Admin user has not given permission for the product to access this QuickBooks company file.

Please note that there are other issues that can cause the “Cannot open” error. See this article for one variation, and the Windows 10 article for another.

The first time that you run the CCRSoftware product with a particular company file, QuickBooks must be open using the Admin user account. You will see a message similar to the one shown below.

If the Admin user doesn’t give permission here, the CCRSoftware product cannot access the QuickBooks company file, and you will get the error.

Similarly, if you don’t have QuickBooks open with the Admin user account when you first run the CCRSoftware product, you will get the error.

One situation does cause some confusion. You may have been running a CCRSoftware product without any problems, but then you install an updated version. Often QuickBooks will consider this to be a new program, and it will require this program to be authorized by the Admin user. Often a user won’t realize that the authorization is required, since they had already been running the program. This is a common occurrence when people are upgrading their program due to the Windows 10 security update.

How do you fix this? Run QuickBooks using the Admin user account and then run the CCRSoftware product. You should see the approval window as shown above, and you need to select the option “Yes, whenever this QuickBooks company file is open”. Note, though, that sometimes this won’t work due to some internal QuickBooks permission settings. In  this case:

  1. Run QuickBooks as the Admin user
  2. Select Edit in the main menu, then Preferences.
  3. In the Preferences window, select Integrated Applications in the left menu, and click on the Company Preferences tab.
  4. Locate the CCRSoftware product in the list of applications, click on it to select it.
  5. Click the Remove button to remove it from the list. If there are multiple occurrences of the same application in the list, remove those also.
  6. Click OK to close this window.
  7. Run the CCRSoftware product, and you should get the permission window.

Access to the path is denied

On occasion you may run into an error message about access to the log path being denied, such as:

Access to the path ‘C:\ProgramData\Computer Consulting Resources\CCRQBOMLog.txt’ is denied.

The name of the file depends on which CCRSoftware product you are using. It could be “CCRQBOMLog.txt” or “CCRQInvoiceLog.txt”.

The log file is created by CCRSoftware products on your local drive, and is used to track activity in the program. Our support team may use this to diagnose problems. It doesn’t contain any critical information that will affect the operation of the program, but the program cannot run if the log cannot be updated. What this error indicates is that for some reason, the program cannot write information to the log file due to a Windows permission error.

There can be several reasons why Windows is denying access to this file. Sometimes when you reconfigure Windows, particularly in a Windows Server environment, this location (C:\ProgramData) has been removed, although that is unlikely. The most common reason is that the program was initially set up with a particular Windows user account, usually the Windows Administrator account, and then you have switched to use a different Windows user account on this computer to run the program. In some cases, this causes Windows to mark the file as read only, so that it cannot be updated by the current user.

Usually the simple fix for this problem is to go to that location (C:\ProgramData\Computer Consulting Resources, or whatever path the error message specifies) and delete the log file. Again, it is just a trace file, one that contains a log of activity, so no important data is stored there. The next time that you run this program with this Windows user account, the CCRSoftware product will create a new log file that this user can access.

Note that in some Windows Server environments you will find that the “ProgramData” folder is shared amongst multiple users. This isn’t the proper way for the users to be set up, each user should have their own copy of this folder.

“Can’t Open QuickBooks” Error on Windows 10

In some new installations of CCRQInvoice and CCRQBOM on Windows 10 systems, users may be confronted with the following error:

If you click OK here, you may see this startup menu (sometimes after a long delay):

And if you click the Currently Open Company button you may get a further error message:

This can be very frustrating and sometimes difficult to resolve. At this time we have not pinned down a specific cause for this error, as there are many variables. It doesn’t always occur, and the resolution isn’t always the same.

At this time we believe that it occurs only in up-to-date Windows 10 installations. It has been seen in a variety of versions of QuickBooks, but so far it only seems to be occurring in recently updated versions. There could be a Windows 10 update that is causing problems – there have been several Microsoft components updated this year that have caused problems with QuickBooks. It also could be related to some updates that QuickBooks has been releasing.

There are several ways that this problem has been resolved in different situations. We have not determined what the common thread is with each of these. It is possible that there are several different issues that are occurring, depending on the version of QuickBooks involved. So far, all problems seem to happen with Windows 10 installations that are new.

It is important to note the following points when installing a new copy of CCRQBOM or CCRQInvoice:

  • The CCRSoftware application must have been installed and run with standard user permissions, not elevated to run as Administrator.
  • Keep in mind that the first time that you run the CCRSoftware application, you must have the QuickBooks file open using the Admin user account, so that the Admin can give permission for the application to access the file.
  • Make sure that you don’t have any dialog box open in QuickBooks when you run the CCRSoftware application. These are windows in QuickBooks that don’t allow you to do anything else until you close the window. Editing preferences, for example. Or one of the many popup windows that QuickBooks may throw your way.
  • Make sure that the general preference Keep QuickBooks running for quick startups is not enabled. If it is, uncheck the box and reboot your computer. Note that Intuit is removing this option from currently supported releases, so you might not find this option. It caused a lot of trouble.

Here are several solutions that have been used to resolve this error for some users, once you have followed the steps above:

Solution 1 has worked in our test environment. We had a new installation of QuickBooks, and then installed the CCRSoftware product. Sometimes new installations don’t start up all QuickBooks services properly. For our test system, the simple solution was to exit QuickBooks, make sure that the CCRSoftware product wasn’t still running in the background, then restart QuickBooks and try again. A simple solution, it has always resolved this error in our own test systems.

Solution 2 involved turning User Account Control to the lowest level, rebooting the computer, then turning User Account Control back to the normal setting. This has resolved the problem for some users.

Solution 3 was provided by a user who resolve the issue on their own. This particular user uninstalled the CCRSoftware product, “cleaned the registry” using a product called CCleaner, and then reinstalled. That resolved the issue for them. Please note that we have not tested CCleaner and we aren’t endorsing it. It is important to note that in the past, with different QuickBooks installations that have been updated multiple times, “cleaning” the Windows registry by some method has often resolved odd problems. However, you have to be careful with this kind of thing.

Solution 4 is a catch-all attempt to fix a number of potential issues. This actually was written to resolve a similar but different issue, but if you have tried all of the above then this is worth trying. See our writeup on 80040408 errors.

If you have any other solution to this, please let us know.

 

 

The QuickBooks Administrator has not given permission

In some cases, when you start a CCRSoftware product you may see an error message similar to the following: Cannot open company file (Session:1009,0) Cannot open this QuickBooks Company. This application does not have permission to access this QuickBooks company data file. The primary issue here is that the QuickBooks admin user has not given permissions to our product to work with this particular QuickBooks company file. Keep in mind that these permissions are set per company file, so you will need separate permissions for each file.

Ask your QuickBooks admin user to perform these steps to resolve this issue:

  1. Run QuickBooks as the Admin user and open the QuickBooks file that you want to work with.
  2. Select Edit from the QuickBooks main menu, then Preferences.
  3. In the Preferences window, select Integrated Applications in the left menu.
  4. Select the Company Preferences tab.
  5. Make sure that the Don’t allow any applications to access this company file box is not checked.
  6. Locate the CCRSoftware product in the list of applications. Make sure that the Allow Access column has a check mark by the application name. In the screen shot below, CCRQInvoice does not have the box checked, and that is what is preventing the program from accessing this file. Click once in that column to add a check mark.
  7. Click OK to close the window, and exit QuickBooks

That normally will resolve the problem.

In some cases you may continue to have problems. Here are a few additional considerations:

  • Sometimes you may find that there are several instances of the same CCRSoftware product in the application list. This occurs if you have installed an updated version – both the original and the update will be listed separately. Make sure that all instances of the program have the allow access column checked.
  • In rare occasions there may be some data corruption in your QuickBooks company file, due to issues that have nothing to do with the add-on program. To resolve this, locate the CCRSoftware application in the list, select it, and click the Remove button to remove it from the list. Remove all instances of the CCRSoftware product that you are using. Then, exit QuickBooks and restart it (as the Admin user). Run the CCRSoftware product again, and you should be asked if you want to allow our product to access your file. It is important to answer Yes, whenever this QuickBooks company file is open.

These steps resolve 99.99% of the issues we’ve seen that generate the error. If it does not, this indicates that you may have some file corruption in your QuickBooks file and that you should consider a “file rebuild” process to clean up your file. Please consult with a qualified QuickBooks ProAdvisor before proceeding, and always make a backup copy of your file before running a File Rebuild process.

Object reference not set to an instance of an object

Sometimes people run into this cryptic error message, “Object reference not set to an instance of an object”

This is confusing, and uninformative.

What happens is that you are running into some error, such as the Cannot open/create a parameter file error, and then clicking the “Continue” button to move on. Because of the first error, the program hasn’t been set up correctly in memory, and when you try to access some function of the program you may get this second error.

The real cause of the problem you are having is the first error. The second error, the “object reference” error, just means that the program has run into issues and can’t figure out what to do.

So what we need to see is that first error.

Unfortunately, there is one copy of the “error.pdf” file created at a time. When you get the first error, that is saved to the error.pdf file. Then you click “Continue” and the second error occurs, which creates a new error.pdf file that overwrites the first one. If you then locate that file and send it to us, we get the meaningless error information and cannot help you.

Two ways to resolve this:

  1. Exit the program and try again. When you get the first error, stop, don’t continue. Locate the error.pdf file that was created and send that to us. Once you have saved that file, then you can continue. You’ll get the error, just exit the program. You can examine the details of that first error message for help.
  2. Alternately you can set up the log file to save more information. See the article on getting detailed diagnostic information.

Revoked Certificate Errors

Under certain circumstances QuickBooks may display an error when you start a CCRSoftware product, “Application with Revoked Certificate”, similar to the one shown here.

This error prevents you from running the program. Note that if you try to run the CCRSoftware product again, after this, you may get a different error (probably something about the admin not giving permission to this program).

Why Did This Happen?

The explanation of why this error occurs is very long and complicated. I’ll try to summarize the main points:

    • Software products can be “code signed”, which gives them a “certificate” that authenticates that the program is created by a real, not bogus, company.
    • Once a certificate is issued to a developer it is supposed to last FOREVER.
    • Some years ago one of the very widely used certificate issuing companies messed up and sold certificates without checking that the companies were valid.
    • Microsoft decided to “revoke” the certificates from that company. So ALL certificates from this time were invalidated, even those for companies (like CCRSoftware) were considered to be legit.

Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t announce the “revoke” process, they just did it, and suddenly a wide range of software products stopped working with QuickBooks. Even some of those created/sold by Intuit. No advance notice! This occurred late in August 2023. Panic!

A few days after this occurred, Microsoft revalidated the revoked certificates (again without telling anyone). All the software products started working again. HOWEVER, at the time I’m writing this (8/30/2023) we don’t know how long this will last. I anticipate that Microsoft will revoke the certificates again.

Fixing the Revoked Certificate

Unfortunately, CCRSoftware is no longer able to create new releases of our products. This means that we cannot create versions that have an updated certificate. However, for MOST of our customers, there is a fix. It is complicated – you may need a computer system technician to help you implement this.

Note that at this time we aren’t able to fully test these solutions, since we cannot duplicate the “revoked certificate” issue after Microsoft pulled it back. We have to wait until Microsoft decides to revoke them again. But we have a reasonable expectation that these steps will work.

There are two files that are signed with certificates that may be revoked. One is the “executable” file for our program, such as CCRQInvoice.exe. The other is a file provided by Intuit, interop.qbmlrp2.dll.

We have little control over the Intuit dll file, although in some circumstances we have been able to remove the certificate error. Hopefully our fix will resolve THEIR portion of the problem.

As for CCRSoftware products, we have been able to update our certificate and create a new executable for many of our products. After installing our product on a system (or, with a system where our product is already installed), you can replace the program executable with our updated version. This might be a bit technical for some users, our apologies. We have limited ability to assist with this process, but a knowledgeable Windows expert should be able to follow the procedure.

Here are the files that are available at this time. These are “zip” files, you will need to download them to your system and unzip them. There is a “readme.txt” file in the zip file that lays out the procedure you must follow, which varies depending on which product you are working with. Note that you will need Windows Admin permissions to copy files into these locations. Do this for every workstation that has our software installed.

Note that it is VERY important that you keep a copy of your original installer, a copy of this zip file, and a written copy of your serial number, in a safe place in case you will need to reinstall the software on another computer at a future date. We cannot guarantee that all of these files will be available from our website in the future. The zip file is NOT a complete installer. You would need to use the original installer to install the program, THEN update that installed program with the files from the zip file. Please make a backup of the original installer, the update zip file, AND your registration/serial number.

Here’s the list of file updates. Note that some products have multiple versions listed. It is IMPORTANT that you download the file for the version that your license/serial number matches.

There are two kinds of serial numbers.

    • Standard Release: Your registration key will be in the format XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX  (doesn’t start with “STD”)
    • Pre Release:  Your registration key will be in the format STD-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX-XXXX

If your software is not on this list, we might not be able to provide you with an update. However, contact us to discuss the situation. Note that a response may take several days, our apologies.

Files listed here are ZIP files. Download them, unzip them on your system, open the “Readme.txt” file for specific instructions.

After You Place the Updated Files

After updating the files you need to connect the updated program with QuickBooks. QB will notice that this is a changed file.

Open QuickBooks as the Admin user.

Run the CCRSoftware product. Since the certificate has been updated, you will be asked if it is OK for this product to access your file (just the same as the first time you used our product). Select “Yes, whenever this QuickBooks file is open”.

Note on Interop.QBXMLRP2.dll

This file is provided by Intuit. It is used by Intuit features as well as many different add-on products. It is “signed”, and possibly with one of the revoked certificates. So it must be updated.

The problem is, there are many versions of this file. CCRSoftware products need a specific version, which must reside in a specific location. If you search for this file on your computer you may find MULTIPLE copies, only one of them works with our product (and, different versions of it with different products of ours).

Intuit will sign the file with a new certificate and install it if you have a CURRENTLY SUPPORTED version of QuickBooks, with the most recent update. But that might not be the version that our software needs.

For SOME of our products we are providing you  with an unsigned version of the dll file, which should take care of the problem, but it is important to install it in the correct location as specified in the readme.txt file. Note that some of our products do not require an updated file.