Vanguard download has gone on strike

[HighTwelve]

This problem cropped up yesterday and is continuing today. For several Vanguard accounts, including both brokerage and ordinary mutual funds, I get the following:

WinInet error code 12152
The server received an invalid or unrecognized response.

Note that the problem is spread over accounts with different owners and different logons.
All of the accounts can be accessed normally. It is only the downloads that aren't working.

What might be a clue is that Vanguard's screen display has now changed slightly in the logon phase. Once the logon is entered, the screen flashes to a second screen for the password. The second screen now shows the logon with the first four digits replaced with ****. I don't recall that the password screen showed anything before a day or two ago.

[Mark]

Hi HighTwelve,

Are you using the latest transaction module (199)? See "Help / About...".

I just tested Vanguard here using multiple accounts, and it appears to be working okay. The logon page you're describing sounds like their web interface. This is a separate interface than the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) interface used by Fund Manager to retrieve your transactions.

[HighTwelve]

I did a little more checking around and I was actually using my own logon more than I thought since I have trading authority in my kids accounts. I reset the transaction retrieve settings for each of them so as to use their own individual logons and now everything works fine except for MY logon, which remains on strike. The only clue is that my logon is one digit longer than the kids or my wife's. However, it always has been that way.

I called Vanguard and they claim that there is no change to my account's personal data. Also, retrieve using TurboTax works fine.

I'm stumped. It is a real PITA to get Vanguard to issue a new logon. It cannot be done online.

I never had this problem before yesterday and I am using Transaction retrieve module #199, which should be the latest one.

[Mark]

Hi HighTwelve,

You might want to try removing the account number on the problematic account. Retrieve just this one account to keep things simple. When you retrieve, it should give you a listing of account numbers associated with your login details. Choose the appropriate one. This may help resolve the issue if there was a formatting problem with the way your account number was entered.

[HighTwelve]

Tried it. All accounts under my logon are affected - individual investor, IRA, Roth, IRA brokerage - you name it. I don't get back a list of accounts. All I get is

"WinInet error code 12152"
and the same message that I got before

Some computer somewhere does not like my logon

[HighTwelve]

PS - a workaround seems to be to give my wife trading authority in all of my accounts. Her logon works fine when I switched our joint accounts from my logon to hers.

Been married for over 40 years. I guess I trust her by now.

[Mark]

Hi HighTwelve,

Interesting... Glad you found a workaround. If you'd like to try and debug this some more, to get it working with your login, why don't you give our office a call. If you're happy with the workaround, you can just stick with that too...

[HighTwelve]

My Vanguard contact person called me back. He suggested that I talk to the folks in their IT department who maintain the OFX server. The number there is 888-353-0547. The number is answered from 8 to 7 daily.

If you folks want to call, go ahead. I am not an IT person and I am going to proceed with the idea of giving my wife access to all the accounts. The only difference here is that my logon is alphanumeric and one digit longer than hers. Hers is all letters - no numerals - and one digit shorter.

On our joint VG accounts - regular and brokerage - her logon works fine while mine gets the strange WinInet 12152 error.

[HighTwelve]

PS - I talked to Vanguard IT. They gave me instructions to enable me to download an OFX file from their website for a particular holding or account. If you want I can download the OFX for an account that I can not access (one of mine) and one for an account that works fine (one of my wife's) and email both to you. Just let me know.

[Mark]

Hi HighTwelve,

That 12152 error is a network protocol type error, happening between Fund Manager and their OFX server. The OFX files you download via their web server won't be able to shed any light on this issue. One way to debug it would be to test it in Quicken. If you get the same error, then Vanguard might be more willing to take a look at the problem on their end. If you don't get the same error, we can compare log files from FM and Quicken.

[HighTwelve]

Alas, I don't use Quicken. TurboTax yes, Quicken no.

[atari800mikey]

Ever since Vanguard changed my account number to a new number ending with an * I have not been able to update any transactions or distributions using the F8 key. Everything worked fine before then. I changed my account number in Fund Manager, and tried the number both with and without the asterisk, but neither work.

[Mark]

Hi atari800mikey,

Try erasing the account number in Fund Manager. When you retrieve transactions, FM will get a listing of all available account numbers for your login, and you can choose the desired one. They may have it formatted slightly differently than you have entered.