QBWin Error: Names on target not internally consistent
You might ask how the name on a check can be missing in QuickBooks, well as it just happens to be our Data Detective recently reviewed such a case. Upon arriving at a local shop where the shopkeeper was complaining that her QuickBooks was doing ‘strange things’, the data detective first made a ‘windows’ safety copy of the client’s file and then proceeded to open QuickBooks using the Admin log-in account. After switching to single-user mode, our sleuth proceeded to run the QuickBooks Verify Data utility. After a few minutes, the Verify utility came back with the message that something was wrong with the client’s data. Upon examining the QBWin.log file, a curious message was identified (as shown in figure 1 of this article). The key points of this Error: Verify Target: Names on target not internally consistent and name: (ref# out of range).
While QuickBooks Technical Support has a knowledge based article that identifies itself with the ‘Names on target not internally consistent’, this article deals with sales tax payments or a pay check containing a tax line not associated with a proper sales tax agency. But even though Intuit has failed to address this topic as it relates to other transactions, our Data Detective knows that the message is typical of a missing identity on the transaction, and as you can see from the QBWin.log file, that transaction is a check. An ‘out of range’ error indicates that that ‘database index’ for the object is not consistent with the data contained in the transactional record, in other words it doesn’t match-up to the reference ID for the specific ‘name type’. In simple there is a ‘missing name’.
Researching the other information within the QBWin.log, our sleuth quickly determines that check # 19803 written on 8/7/2013 has no actual name on the payee line, in other words it is not associated with any ‘name in the master name list’; however, there is a name being displayed on the line “print name as ……”. Another sleuthing reveals that the name listed there corresponds to a specific vendor, and the vendor record contains both an actual name, as well as the name shown in the print name as field.
So why doesn’t the check contain the actual vendor name in the record? The most likely answer was that this was a check previously written and printed. Then for some reason the shopkeeper opened the record on a subsequent occasion and was tabbing from field to field; suddenly while her cursor was in the Payee Field, something like a power failure, or break in the connection between her QuickBooks application and the QuickBooks Database Server caused the transaction to again be saved, but this time without the complete information, thus a check with ‘a missing name’ was recorded. This type of situation illustrates the need to insure that all QuickBooks installations are adequately protected by uninterruptable power supplies, and that the quality of your computer network be monitored for equipment irregularities that may cause a loss of connection, even if momentary. Wireless networks are especially vulnerable to such momentary connection losses and may cause data corruptions of this type.
Repairing the corrupted check was simple, it just involved keying in the correct vendor name into the actual Payee field, then clicking the re-calculate button to insure the source and target records were in match, and saving the transaction. Upon subsequent verification the issue was resolved, and not even a Rebuild Data routine was required.
While data loss of any type is nothing to be taken lightly, in this case it was a simple matter to track down the culprit transaction, identify the corrupted (missing) data, and repair the transaction manually. Knowing the pattern certain types of QuickBooks errors take, along with understanding the relationships that exist between transactional records and their corresponding list elements, makes fixing this type of error, elementary my Dear Watson.
And so, our Data Detective has once again solved a great QuickBooks mystery; as he heads home he thinks to himself that a job so well done deserves a meal fit for a king.....there just must be some little inn that is serving a ‘Scotch mutton pie’ nearby.