Great concepts don't change; people just forget about them, especially those who have been around forever and cannot stop talking about them.
I recently helped someone with issues that boiled down to the fundamentals outlined in some great concepts. It has been almost eight years since I wrote about these things, so I thought I would take another look because they haven't changed.
If you try to open QuickBooks Desktop and your Company File will not open, there are some basic steps that will not only help you try to overcome this, but also help diagnose the problems along the way.
Because the problem could be the result of your Company File or QuickBooks itself, you can use a simple step to help you diagnose which one it is.
When you are ready to start QuickBooks again, hold down the CTRL key while double-clicking the QuickBooks icon. Keep holding down the CTRL key until QuickBooks opens completely. QuickBooks will ignore the last file opened and should open to the "No Company Open" screen.
If QuickBooks does not open, the likely cause is with the QuickBooks application itself. In that case, you likely will need to repair QuickBooks using the Repair/Uninstall utility found in the Windows Control Panel.
If QuickBooks opens properly, plan on opening your file in single-user mode.
To do this, from the No Company Open window, select the "middle button" to Open or Restore a Company file.
When the windows dialog box opens, navigate to your company file, but make certain to "uncheck" the check-box at the bottom of that window, which reads "'Open QuickBooks in multi-user mode."
While this could be all it takes to open your company file, we are going to take one additional precaution before moving forward.
Because QuickBooks Company files can become corrupted during improper shut-down—and those corruptions can involve any of the open windows or transactions in process at the time—those corruptions can prevent QuickBooks from opening properly. This happens as it goes through the process of attempting to restore active windows or transactions that were in process at the time of shut-down.
To avoid any corruptions of this type from preventing QuickBooks from fully opening the Company file, we are going to use another trick of the trade.
After making certain you are ready to open the file in single-user mode, hold down the ALT key and then click OK. Keep holding down the ALT key. If your file is password protected, release the ALT key. Enter the password and then hold down the ALT key again before clicking OK.
Unless your company file is severely damaged it should open. But none of the windows previously open in the program when you shut it down (or it shut down) will be open now.
If your Company file opens, you will want to do a complete back-up and run the Verify and Rebuild Utilities to try to resolve any problems that were causing your file opening issues.
If the procedures outlined above don't open your file, you probably have a severely corrupted QuickBooks Desktop Company file that may require repairs by Intuit QuickBooks Data Services (or one of a very limited number of other professionals still in that business).
You may have as many as three alternatives prior to going to either of those two extremes (above):
- Restore the most recent back-up copy of your QuickBooks Desktop Company file, and proceed with recreating the work you are missing since that backup. (Shame on you if your most recent backup was older than a day or two.)
- Restore an "Auto data recovery copy" of your QuickBooks Desktop Company file if your "data disaster" is less than a 48-hours old and your overall computer system is intact. (See my three article series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.)
- Attempt a file repair using the QuickBooks File Doctor utility (by selecting the File Repair Only option), which can be accessed from the File>>Utilities>File Repair and Network Problems... menu if QuickBooks Opens, even if your Company File does not open.
Still the same, let us hope that the relatively simple steps I gave you using the CTRL and ALT keys can get you out of trouble.
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