Questions[quickbooks](server)

We have just migrated to a new server for one of our clients and we have two applications that integrate with Quickbooks using the Quickbooks COM library. Both of these applications worked without issue on the previous server, and both still boot and run up until the point that they actually call to interface with Quickbooks (specifically the OpenConnection call), at which point they crash with the same NTDLL error (with the same offset).

One of these applications is T-Hub by Atandra, and one is a custom application our company deployed to integrate with other of our custom applications for this client.

We also have an internal server that has a working Quickbooks install with the custom application.

Additionally, the applications worked correctly initially on the new server, but began failing as soon as we installed the QB client on it. Following are the details of the fault:

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name: {redacted}
  Application Version:  1.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:    58232641
  Fault Module Name:    StackHash_5648
  Fault Module Version: 6.3.9600.18233
  Fault Module Timestamp:   56bb4e1d
  Exception Code:   c0000374
  Exception Offset: PCH_ED_FROM_ntdll+0x0003C7EC
  OS Version:   6.3.9600.2.0.0.272.7
  Locale ID:    1033
  Additional Information 1: 5648
  Additional Information 2: 564873ffcb97a7464af12b9608aaad29
  Additional Information 3: faad
  Additional Information 4: faad37a8518b385103d96b58fc6b8d7b

Debugging in disassembly reveals that heap corruption occurred at 0x76fa6054 in both cases.

Both servers are running Windows Server 2012 R2. The Quickbooks client in use is version 16.0. T-Hub is v10.507. DEP is enabled with no exceptions on both the old and new server.

EDIT: With as close of a replicated environment as we can get on a cloned version of our internal server, we haven't been able to reproduce the issue yet. However the issue is consistent, the current server is our second attempt where the first had the same issue.

At this point I'm not really sure what other steps I can take to diagnose this exact issue. What are some other things I can look at, or if anyone has run into this issue before what was the solution?

I am helping administer systems for a small business that (unfortunately) uses QuickBooks 14 to manage its accounting.

As an aside, is it just me or is QuickBooks one of the most poorly-programmed popular client-server applications in existence? Isn't Intuit making enough money that they could actually write a real client-server app instead of having the users access the storage directly via SMB?

The users use RDP Server running on Win2k8R2 to access the company file, which lives on a separate server dedicated to hosting files.

I have set up the scheduled backup feature in QuickBooks to schedule nightly backups.

Unfortunately, the backups will ocassionally fail - but the error messages provide virtually nothing in the way of helpful info - and I am fairly certain there are no network/NTFS permissions/sharing permissions issues preventing the backup as if there were, the backup would fail every time.

I am superstitious and believe that the backups would work every time if all users were logged out. I have never seen the backup fail when users are logged out.

The problem is I only know how to taskkill to log the users out programatically; I know there is a button in the program to do that but I need it to run as a scheduled task right before the backup takes place. I don't want to use taskkill every night as I feel this could lead to data issues.

How can I programatically and gracefully end all users' sessions in QuickBooks?

I have a real strange one... I do IT work for an accounting firm, and because they have such a diverse group of clients, they have many different versions of Quickbooks installed at once. All employees run as "standard Users" (ie, not admin or power users). All PC's are Win7-64 bit, fully patched via a local WSUS server.

Somehow about three weeks ago (maybe a month... perhaps last month's patch tuesday caused it?) all of the users started reporting that the Quickbooks 2011 desktop icon was displaying with a "UAC Shield" on it and they were being prompted for a username and password when they invoked the program.

The strange thing is, the username and password that they were ALREADY LOGGED ON WITH worked to bypass this UAC prompt. But once the program opened no network drives were available, almost as if they had been logged in with a separate copy of their profile but without the logon script running first so no mapped drives are available.

A complete reset of a given user's profile fixes the problem, but that is not a real acceptable solution...

So, any suggestions for ways that I can change the UAC prompting for this application? There has to be something in the profile that causes this to happen that I can look into.

I appreciate any suggestions,

Glenn

We have a policy of disallowing scripts and ActiveX controls to run on in IE our network (instead opting to use Firefox) thereby skirting a number of security issues dating back to IE 6, but we recently decided to purchase QuickBooks, which requires IE, scripts, and ActiveX controls. We aren't about to change our Firefox policy now, but we do need to get IE to play nice with QuickBooks without reducing IE security in general. So far our set up is as follows:

Trusted Sites Zone setting

• Enable "Allow active scripting"
• Enable "Run ActiveX controls and plugins"

The remaining settings are not configured. I've set the same settings to "prompt" for the internet zone for testing purposes, and I put the following in the "Site to Zone Assignment List":

Site to Zone Assignment List

• *.intuit.com : 2
• *.quickbooks.com : 2
• *.intuitmarket.com : 2
• *.payroll.com : 2

This has eliminated the majority of issues we have with prompts while using QuickBooks, but we are still getting prompts on a number of screens, and I can't figure out what could be causing them. For example, Quickbooks Forms Customization (I need to load the URL 2x before the forms page loads in IE) gives me both prompts:

• "Scripts are usually safe. Do you want to allow scripts to run?"
• "Do you want to allow software such as ActiveX controls and plug-ins to run?"

I've discussed the issue with QuickBooks support, but their support team was unhelpful. How can I get rid of the prompts?

I'm looking into moving a small non-profit business from a desktop-based Quickbooks Pro setup to Intuit's QuickBooks Online service. I'm primarily looking for a more reliable setup for them, as they've had reliability issues with their server from time to time, and don't have the funds to hire any IT personnel. I'm only able to help them out on a volunteer basis irregularly. QuickBooks features that they are currently using include: multi-user (2-3 users), payroll, billing

I've seen the page on Intuit's site comparing the desktop and online products, but I'm looking for reports from first-hand experience and comments on anything that Intuit might not be disclosing in their comparison.