Taming QuickBooks Desktop Part 3 - A Scaling New Heights Primer

Each year I get more than 100 calls or emails from people asking me for help regarding the 'poor performance' of QuickBooks Desktop on their network. Most of the time it boils down to just a few different issues:

  • Improper Set-up
  • Not meeting System Requirements
  • Server Problems
  • Poor Network Design (or maintenance)
  • QuickBooks File (size or corruption)

The course I teach at Scaling New Heights, and will be teaching this June, titled, Enhancing QuickBooks Desktop Stability and Performance is intended to instruct how to deal with these issues. Over the next few months we will take a look at examples of each of the issues above which we will be covering in that 100-minute course.

-6000 Series Errors

We could probably spend the entire 100-minutes covering all the various -6000 Series errors and their resolutions, but unfortunately we only have a few minutes to discuss the numerous problems that can result in these errors.  There are multiple reasons why you may experience a -6000 Series Error when attempting to open QuickBooks Company files.  Many of these errors result from ‘improper set-up’ of QuickBooks typically within a network setting. We addressed several aspects of Improper Set-up in Part 1 of this mini-series.

One of the common forms of Improper Set-up resulting in the generation of -6000 Series Errors is ‘multiple hosting’.  Whether you are running a peer-to-peer, or client-server, network configuration of QuickBooks there should only be one QuickBooks Database Server (a windows service) running on the designated QuickBooks server computer.  If other computers have mistakenly been configured for ‘hosting’ or hosting has been turned-on on those other computers QuickBooks will not work properly in multi-user mode and a -6000 Series Error (like -6000, -832, or -6010, -100) maybe generated.

You will need to track down any/all computers that have QuickBooks hosting turned-on in error. One quick method of doing this is to open the Product Information window from within QuickBooks on each computer by pressing the F2 key (or CTRL + 1).  Find the Local Server Information section of the window. Hosting should be turned-off.  If hosting is turned-on, you will need to turn it off from the Utilities menu of QuickBooks (as shown below) by selecting Stop hosting multi-user access.

You will then confirm the hosting status change by clicking Yes on the Stop hosting multi-user access command prompt (as shown below).

Remember, hosting should only be turned-on on the one computer serving as the QuickBooks Database Server.  It should be turned-off on every other computer using QuickBooks.

When multiple ‘hosts’ have been configured, it is not uncommon that more than one .QBW.ND (network descriptor) file can be found in the file directory where the QuickBooks Company (.QBW) file is located.  The .ND file is a configuration file that is associated with multi-user operations of QuickBooks, it is a special text file that identified the name of the computer where the QuickBooks Database Server is installed and running, along with the TCP/IP address of that computer.  The course slide (shown in the illustration below) shows how to properly read and interpret an .ND file. 

To resolve .ND file conflicts created by having more than one .ND file for the same Company file, open the folder that contains your company file, then find the files with the same file name as your company files but with extensions .ND; right-click each file and select rename, then add the word OLD at the end of each file name. (Repeat for each Company file.)

Now you should re-scan the QuickBooks files using the QuickBooks Database Server manager utility (as shown above):

  1. Start > All Programs > QuickBooks > QuickBooks Database Server Manager.
  2. Click the Scan folders tab.
  3. Click Add folder (if no folders are present). Otherwise, highlight the folder with the files and click Scan.
  4. Confirm that the company file in question shows in the bottom box with heading "QuickBooks company files found."
  5. Open QuickBooks and try to sign in to your company file.

Another cause of -6000 Series Errors is when the .QBW.TLG (transaction) log file is corrupted or mismatched to the actual Company (.QBW) file. To resolve .TLG file conflict:

  1. Open the folder that contains your company file.
  2. Find the files with the same file name as your company files but with extension .TLG (company_file.qbw.tlg)
  3. Right-click each file and select Rename. Add the word OLD at the end of each file name. (Example: company_file.qbw.tlg.OLD)
  4. Open QuickBooks and try to sign in to your company file.

For a complete (relatively) list of -6000 Series Errors along with differential diagnosis, potential causes and possible resolutions see the table below:

In most cases the steps we have outlined will resolve the majority of -6000 Series Errors; however, in a few instances like actual Company (.QBW) file corruption additional steps maybe required.  We will be discussing some instances of -6000 Series Error File Corruption and potential resolution during my Enhancing QuickBooks Desktop Stability and Performance course.

Tame the Machines

This year's theme at Scaling New Heights is 'Tame the Machines'. Certainly, it's about the big changes that are underway with artificial intelligence and the next level of automation, not to mention how those will impact our profession. But the reality is that we have always had to 'tame the machines'.

-6000 Series Errors are a good example of the problems which a qualified QuickBooks ProAdvisor must be able to 'tame' with respect to the computer network and QuickBooks installation configuration.  It take a QuickBooks ProAdvisor who knows enough to properly 'diagnose' what's wrong before you can 'tame' it. While -6000 series errors may only have a single cause per specific error in a few cases you must still deferentially diagnose between multiple causes for a single Error number. 

The principles taught in Enhancing QuickBooks File Stability and Performance will help you whether you are dealing with Peer-to-peer, Client-server, Remote-desktop, Virtual-Private, Cloud-hosted QuickBooks across the internet.

So, come 'network' with me, along with more than a thousand of your fellow ProAdvisors, and learn to "tame the machines". I look forward to seeing you at Scaling New Heights 2018.