Failure to Retrieve Price Updates

[dbender54]

Recently, after the last update to the price retrieval module (and perhaps coincidentally with an call option expiration), I am receiving a message" One or more servers were unable to retrieve any prices..."

I've received this message in the past after an option expired unexercised. I could check the Internet Retrieval properties of the option and uncheck "retrieve price". However, I've reviewed the setting for the last expired option (as well as a number of them even prior to that) and it is not set to retrieve a price.

Though I only had one sub-portfolio with an option that recently expired, if I selectively retrieve the prices (only) from another sub portfolio that had no options expire recently, I get the message on it too, while other sub portfolios (which have never had any option activity) have no such message. So it seems to be confined to these two sub-portfolios.

How can I look at a log to see which transaction/portfolio is having the price retrieval issue?

Thanks for your assistance.

[Mark]

Hi dbender54,

When you get this message, by default there is another message right after this that asks if you want to view the internet retrieve log file. That second dialog has a "do not show me this message again" check mark, so if you've checked that, you won't be prompted to view the log file. This log file is where you would see which quote server wasn't able to update any pricing, and which symbols are being retrieved from that server. You can manually go look at the log file. It is located at:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Fund Manager\intlog3.txt

[dbender54]

Thank you Mark. The log did identify the transactions not retrieving prices. Except for one security, they were all options (as I had expected), but none of the ones causing the error had recently expired (and prior to the update) I was not receiving a retrieve error. So maybe the update flushed out some problems lurking there that had not surfaced. However, one item was an ETF (XLV), not an option, and it had never been reporting an error previously. I checked the quote server for that security (not one I recently acquired) and it was using Yahoo Options, which was the cause of the error. Updating the quote server to Yahoo fixed the retrieve error on the last item causing an error.
I had disabled the display of the message, so I appreciate the path to the log file. I'll retain for future reference.

[dbender54]

Hi dbender54,

When you get this message, by default there is another message right after this that asks if you want to view the internet retrieve log file. That second dialog has a "do not show me this message again" check mark, so if you've checked that, you won't be prompted to view the log file. This log file is where you would see which quote server wasn't able to update any pricing, and which symbols are being retrieved from that server. You can manually go look at the log file. It is located at:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Fund Manager\intlog3.txt

I updated to FM 2018 today and am receiving failures to retrieve quotes that did not happen under the prior version. The message about the retrieval failure listed some tickers I recognized, but had some numeric 'tickers' which I did not recognize. I opened the log file to which you referred above and found these error messages:
---------------------
WARNING - Unable to update: ""
WARNING - Unable to update: "ALTR"
WARNING - Unable to update: "RDSA", "NIN3Z"
WARNING - Unable to update: "2966411", "PRIVATE-XCT", "XCT", "EIT-C"
WARNING - Unable to update: "CEV1Z", "3897619"
WARNING - Unable to update: "NAM1Z", "UT20"
---------------------
All of my investments are held in varying accounts at Schwab.

Note that RDSA is Royal Dutch Shell, class A and has never been a problem before.
ALTR is Altera Corp (NASDAQ).
NIN3Z (may be Columbia Large Cap Index Fund Class Z NINDX maybe?) I believe is a Columbia Mutual Fund that I do still own (for many years) and never had a quote error; same for CEV1Z (Columbia Global Equity Value - CEVX) and NAM1Z (COLUMBIA MID CAP VALUE Fund-a fund I no longer own) These funds may have changed their ticker at some point I believe, but not in the last few years.
I have no idea what XCT is. Looking up the ticker, , it's nothing I've ever owned. Same for "3897619" and "2966411"

I tried re-retrieving the quotes but received the same message the second time.
I am using the same quote server as before (Yahoo). If you like, I can send you the complete log privately. I'm going to be out of town for a few days, so [lease excuse any delayed response. I appreciate your help.

[Mark]

Hi dbender54,

In FM 2018 we added more control over when you get notified about investments that do not get updated. See "Options / Internet Settings... / Advanced Options... / Warning Level on Retrieve Failure". The default for this new option is "Symbol", so that for any symbol requested you will get notified if it couldn't be updated. The prior version worked equivalent to the setting of "Whole Server", which means you only get notified when all symbols for a given server fail to update.

It sounds like these symbols have probably not been updating previously either, but now you're just getting warned about them. You can confirm by looking at the price history in the Data Register for these particular symbols.

To fix these, you can either correct the symbol, quote server, or just disable them from retrieving. To help find some symbol you can create a Custom report at your top level sub-portfolio with the single field of "Symbol". Do not sub-total, and list by investment. Turn on "View / Hidden Investments/Portfolios" so you see everything. From the top Sort menu select "Symbol" to sort by symbol. This will give you a listing of all your open investments, sorted by symbol, so you can easily find anything you're not familiar with. Right mouse click on a line and choose "Investment Properties..." to correct anything necessary.

[dbender54]

For Royal Dutch Shell, Yahoo uses RDS-A, whereas the broker uses RDS/A . I did a price retrieval in FM and though it gave me an error on that symbol, the price in FM was the same as quoted by my broker (Schwab). If I change the symbol in FM, what impact would that have on retrieving transactions for that equity from Schwab (including transactions like dividends, etc.)?

What would the impact be of changing the ticker in FM for the other tickers like CEVZX? Schwab shows this ticker, but if I click on it in my holdings on the Schwab.com site, it shows up as CEVX. FM shows this fund as CEV1Z, where, despite the differences in symbol between services, prices and transactions (# of shares) are being priced correctly, though if I use CEV1Z in Yahoo, it does not find the symbol. https://finance.yahoo.com/lookup?s=CEV1Z
I don't want to lose any transaction pr pricing history by changing a ticker.

Thank you.

[Mark]

Hi dbender54,

The transaction retrieve feature uses CUSIP, not symbol. So, it is best to set the symbol to whatever the quote server (Yahoo) uses, and just make sure your CUSIP is set correctly, so when you retrieve from your broker it can correctly update transactions/prices also.

[dbender54]

Thank you Mark, that process helped greatly, though it was still cumbersome to find which account held the investments. A number of the ones that caused the errors were in an account I closed out last year. It had zero share numbers in FM. Although they were all set to retrieve prices (both Retrieve Price and Update Price When Retrieving Transactions), I never received errors for these. Curiously, even unchecking both options for all those items did not clear the errors. Since the account had been zeroed out, I simply closed the account since it was folded into its own new home elsewhere.

There were a few funds that had changed symbols (perhaps they were consolidated into another fund by the fund company). I changed those to the current symbol for Yahoo and those errors disappeared.

There was one fund that had no ticker, but was in the same sub-portfolio with an identical fund that somehow got broken into two parts. The total value in FM was the same as in the fund company's reporting, so I had never cared about the two lines. But because the symbol field was empty, FM returned an error (as it should have).

The last one was RDSA (Royal Dutch Shell A, which has a number of variations on symbols, depending on which quote server is used. Though the price was being retrieved in FM, the error arose due to the ticker mismatch for the Yahoo quote server which used a different symbol than what had been imported into FM when I initially set up the portfolios in 2009.

When updating the transactions, FM hung on the last sub-portfolio (I let it sit for a while), so I canceled it. It then crashed and gave me an error message. I will email you the error message.

[Mark]

Hi dbender54,

Turning off the "Retrieve Price" option on an investment, should at least fix that one investment from reporting an error. It may be possible that you have another investment with that same symbol, causing that symbol to still report an error.

Thanks for the error report. I got the error message, but if the file is still there, could you email me the .dmp file mentioned in that error message?

[jstoever]

Hi Mark,
I've been using FM since about 1996 and love how it's evolved over the years.
I upgraded to the 2018 version earlier this week and am also receiving messages that "The following symbol/server combinations failed to update". The symbols in the lists are all stocks and mutual funds and are valid. A check of the price history for each of their associated securities verifies that they had been getting updated for years. I also verified the symbols by going to 'finance.yahoo.com' which shows their current prices and other information. I've tried using various quote servers within the 'Internet Settings' area of FM yet the errors persist. This is rather annoying as price retrieval is an integral part of the product. I can send you the retrieval logs if you'd like, if there is any other information available to help you diagnose the problem let me know and I'll provide it.

Jim

[Mark]

Hi Jim,

Yes, please either email me, or you can attach the log file to a post back here on the forum. You can get to the log under "Help / Logs / Price Retrieve...".

[jstoever]

Hi Mark.
Thanks for the quick reply.
I'm attaching the log files for your review. The 'wsj' one shows failures when using the Wall Street Journal servers. It's worth mentioning that sometimes all prices for all symbols are retrieved, the problem is intermittent. I also see them when using the Yahoo! servers.

Regards,
Jim

[Mark]

Hi jstoever,

In the WSJ log the first failing quote was for a symbol of "BF-B". That symbol isn't available on WSJ. You can go there with your web browser, and check. For whatever quote server you decide to use, you need to record the symbols as used by that quote server. You can find links to all the supported quote servers here.

[jstoever]

Hi Mark.
This seems to be an intermittent problem. Since my post of 3 or 4 days ago all of my securities, including BF-B, had been retrieved without error using either the WSJ server or the Yahoo! ones. This morning none of my prices were retrieved using the Yahoo! server. I really don't have the time to go fiddling with different servers every day, I again verified all of the symbols via the Yahoo! Finance site. I've attached the first 3 of my logs from this morning's price retrieval attempts, I will attach the remaining ones in separate postings as you only allow 3 at a time.

Regards,
Jim

[jstoever]

Posting log set 2 of 3