Tag: Log File

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.

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.

CCRQInvoice Won’t Process Orders

If you are using CCRQInvoice and you can’t get the program to process orders for you, here’s a checklist to go through to help resolve the problem.

This assumes that you have connected the program to your QuickBooks company file and that you aren’t getting any error messages. If you are getting an error message then you can search this website for information on the particular error. If you can’t find your error, send us diagnostic information.

 Open QuickBooks Company File Menu

If you just get this window, then one of several things have occurred:

 

  • Your QuickBooks company file isn’t open yet. Open it before you run CCRQInvoice.
  • You haven’t told QuickBooks that it is OK to access this file. This must be done by the QuickBooks admin user. See the installation documentation for details on setting things up.
  • There was some kind of error message preceding this. Look for a description of the error message or send us diagnostic information.

All Menu Options are Gray

If you open CCRQInvoice and all options are grayed out, this means you aren’t connected to the QuickBooks company file. The remedies are the same as listed in the Open QuickBooks Company File Menu section above.

Processing Options are Grayed Out

If you open the Order Processing window and you cannot select the option you want because it is grayed out, that means that you haven’t set up preferences for this company file. Note that this also can happen if you change your Company Name in the QuickBooks My Company information section.

 

To correct this, select Preferences in CCRQInvoice, then click the button by Parameter Wizard.

When you get to the Processing Options screen, choose the option you wish to enable.

Your Orders Aren’t Sorting or Totaling

OK, so everything seems to work so far, but nothing happens! You can open CCRQInvoice without an error, your preferences are all set, but nothing happens?

First of all, remember that if you set up totals, the totaling won’t happen automatically. You have to run the Order Processing function, load your orders, select your options and then click one of the Process buttons. This is described in the documentation. New users sometimes expect it all to happen automatically, but Intuit won’t let us work that way.

If that still doesn’t work, the most common issue is that you have multiple conflicting options. If you have enabled multiple processing options and several of them are sharing the same custom fields, they may interfere with each other. Make sure you don’t have different options using the same custom fields.

Another possibility is that you are trying to process an order that is open in QuickBooks. Don’t have the order open in QuickBooks when processing it, since QuickBooks has placed a lock on the order to prevent our program from updating it at the same time.

Beyond that, there are a number of potential (but not common) problems that can cause an issue. Again, we are assuming that you are not getting any error messages, then you can send us some diagnostic information. At this point we need a log file where you process a single invoice. Don’t process multiple invoices, that makes it too hard to identify the problem. The procedure for setting up a log file and sending it to us is outlined in this article about how to send us diagnostic information.

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.