THE DATA DETECTIVE - The Case of the Missing Memorized Report

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It was another cold winter morning, as the Data Detective walked briskly toward his favorite place for his morning café au lait and brioche.  As he sat down his cell phone began to ring and the caller on the other end was crying out, “my report, my report, it will not run.  I saved it a few days ago, but this morning it just won’t run.” Our old sleuth told the damsel he would be there by the strike of 9 on the bell tower of the local abbey. 

The Data Detective has seen this problem plenty of times; he knows that QuickBooks has issues with Memorized Reports and that they are a common source of corruption.  This type of problem may result from the memorized report actually being damaged, or the memorized report list may be the source of corruption.

In some cases the memorized report contains damaged formatting data which prevents the report from being generated, this usually occurs when the report is corrupted during the ‘memorizing process.’  In such cases the QBWin.log file will show an error like this:

  • LVL_ERROR--Memorized Report recnum ### (Name of Report) contains corrupted formatting data.  recnum ### -- This memorized report must be deleted.

Usually in these cases ‘nothing happens’ when you click on the memorized report, or select the option to open it.

In other cases the memorized report list is corrupted, usually due to an out-of-bounds index.  This can result from the list being out of ‘internal order’, or from a deletion to the list where QuickBooks did not re-index the list order.  In those cases the QBWin.log file will normally show an error like:

  • ERROR--Error: Verify Memorized Report List: TotUsed is ##, expected ## Error: Verify Memorized Report list: Display index invalid.

It is not unusual for a different memorized report to open when you click on the memorized report you want, because the index associated with that ‘report slot’ actually points to a different report location.

Unfortunately, the Data Detective knows that it is almost always impossible to recover the missing or corrupted memorized report without sophisticated data file recovery procedures, and most Users simply prefer to recreate the report after the corruption is resolved. In such cases the fix involves deleting the list entry and forcing QuickBooks to re-index the Memorized Report list, after taking the appropriate safety precautions of course.

Upon arriving at the clients, she elects to recreate the report, so the Data Detective goes about the steps for repair of the corruption:

  1. Make a ‘windows copy’ of your QuickBooks file and the QBW.tlg file, and store them in a 'safety directory' you create.
  2. Run the Verify Data utility from the File>Utilities menu
  3. Open the QBWin.log and note all of the damaged memorized reports.
  4. Select the Reports menu and select Memorized Reports > Memorized Report List.
  5. Individually, one by one, highlight each damaged memorized report that you noted from the QBWin.log file.
  6. Click the Memorized Report button, and then Delete Memorized Report and click OK.
  7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 to delete each damaged memorized report that was displayed in the QBWin.log.
  8. Click the Memorized Report button once again at the bottom of the Memorized Report List.
  9. Select the option to Re-sort List, and click OK; now close the Memorized Report List.
  10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 one time.
  11. Run the Rebuild Data utility from the File>Utilities menu.
  12. Run the Verify Data utility from the File>Utilities menu.
  13. If Verify Data completes successfully, recreate the deleted memorized reports as needed.
  14. If Verify Data fails with any message other than “QuickBooks detected No problems with your data”, open the QBWin.log and note any newly listed damaged memorized reports. Many times the QBWin.log will only report 3 or 4 damaged reports, and a subsequent Verify may return additional corruptions. In these cases repeat procedures 3 through 14.

As the Data Detective left the client, he thought, how simply marvelous another cup of café au lait would be on such a cold morning….after all staying warm at the neighborhood café is as "elementary", as solving the mystery of a missing memorized report..."my Dear Watson".