Discover Direct Connect stopped working

B wrote in news:h9lla5$376$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

Downloading data from Discover has been flaky for many months now. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Luckily for me I have been forced to us my Citibank Mastercard to keep up my balance in order to qualify for free this that and the other thing from Citibank. That's because my Citibank IRA tanked, so it wasn't really lucky me. I would like to tell Discover I am not using their card because of the problems with downloading data, and probably will.

I don't think Direct Connect has stopped working for Discover. Discover downloads have been reporting errors in Quicken on and off for several months now, but - at least in my case - it invariably happens when there are no transactions to download. I can't point to a time when I didn't get transactions Direct downloaded when they were available for download. The error I do get is OL-295 and that happens several times a month, at least.

I successfully Direct downloaded a transaction from Discover two days ago, on Sept 24; and I successfully Direct connected to Discover twice today (had no transactions available to download). Q2008 and Q2009.

I'm not saying that Discover isn't having "any" problems; I have read of some other users who said that couldn't get transactions downloaded when they were available. Just that I don't think Direct connect downloads from Discover are totally out of commission ... "erratic" might be a good description from my experience.

"John Pollard" wrote in news:h9lrs1$lno$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

John, you might be right that when Discover throws an error OL-295-A (in my case) only when there are no transactions to download, but that is still no good. I want to know that there are no transactions, and the cryptic text with the OL-295-A message is not clear whether a) there are no transactions available, or b) that the connection couldn't be made to check. A definite message like a) is fine, but throwing in b) confuses me.

I agree; just tried to point out that what I was seeing definitely wasn't the total failure of Direct Connect downloading.

[Also, I often get notified before I download from Discover (and Chase credit card) that there won't be any transactions.]

"John Pollard" wrote in news:YWvvm.60495$5n1.60033@attbi_s21:

Because I am anal, I often do a Quicken download first, then check the FIs' websites. Almost invariably, the websites show transactions 24-48 hrs before they get downloaded by Quicken. I think that is ecause the FI puts the data first on their own ervers, before putting them on the Quicken-connected computer, for whatever reason they chose to do that. Anyways, I thinkit is good practice to keep a bit of a cushion against unexpected but legitimate transactions.

I've been having intermittent download failures with Discover for many weeks now. Usually just takes few more tries to be successful. One of my three Discover accounts was failing throughout today, till earlier tonight. No transactions to download, Direct Connect would just give an error message.

"Bob Wang" wrote in news:h9mjnd$sd3$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

Just now, the website says my outstanding balance is 245.44, with a statement balance of 99.81, but no transactions since the statement. Huh??? Downloading through Direct Connect today does give me 2 transactions, that, together with 2 other transactions, downloaded after the statement date a few days ago, do indeed give me the 245.44 balance.

Conclusion: SNAFU (look up the acronym). Discovercard's sites do not show proper balances and are internally inconsistent. That's not good if you want to keep track of your money.

That happened to me late one night a week or so ago. I figured it was some weird way that they update their system so that the balance was updated but transaction weren't available for viewing/downloading yet. The next day the transaction were available for download.

Bernie

B wrote in news:h9olbb$hki$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

That seems quite obvious, Bernie. However, if something isn't right, or I forgot what I had charged, I would like to know what and where.

Sometimes things don't work as we would like. Hardware fails; software fails. Humans make mistakes. You're not ever going to get exactly what you want ... you need to learn to live with it.

There is no issue in the Discover download problems, other than the temporary inconvenience. You are always welcome to seek other means of getting the same information ... which is definitely available at the Discover website. Oh wait, maybe the Discover web site could sometimes be down, whatever would we do then?

Ok, then you could get another credit card. And what would you do it you had problems there ... after all, the other credit card companies also have imperfect hardwar and software, chosen by, and maintained by fallible humans. Whatever will we do.

Give it a rest.

"John Pollard" wrote in news:ZdTvm.68840$la3.63998@attbi_s22:

I have other cards, John, and do use them. I used to really like the Discover card, but Discover/Novus should know that the have reliability issues that need addressing. I sincerely hope they do address them. The current minor problems with Discover are indeed only a bit of a bother, nothing really serious, as I do know how to work around them. Nevertheless, I am not using Discover as my main card aymore. Only a small part of the reasons are the problems with Discover, others are more important. But if Discover wants my $200/mo charges back they need to improve.

I've read this thread, and concur with the premise that Discover Direct Connect has been erratic for many weeks now, but it is still working some portion of the time. FWIW, I've noticed that it fails more frequently when my download request is a part of a general request to all FI in my PIN vault. If I suspect there should be a transaction, I often find that a request for "Update Now" of the single Discover account from its register page completes successfully. This has worked immediately after receiving an error message during a full FI update. I don't have a theory, and I don't find this convenient, but it has at least provided a work-around for me.

Any one else find a similar symptom? Is Discover possibly throttling access via direct connect either intentionally, or by inattention to server load?

I appreciate this thread of confirmation that Discover has not singled my connection out for neglect.

I do believe I have had that experience once or twice.

As far as Discover intentionally limiting Direct Connect, it doesn't seem like that is involved in your experience since Update Now also uses Direct Connect when the account is setup for Direct Connect.

If it is any consolation, they have 5% rebates for grocery stores, restaurants, and movies for October through December. You just need to sign up for the offering on their web site. That made them my primary card for the next few months. Chase just cut their rebates on the Freedom card, so they go to the back of my wallet. I think the rebate amount trumps most other issues with a credit card.

My download issues with Discover seem to be resolved by just downloading again. Two or three clicks of the mouse, and I've got all of my transactions.

-- Jim

Discover has replied to my note with a boiler plate message asking what version of Quicken I use, what error message I see, etc. I have replied with the information they requested and with a reference to this Usenet thread. And also that at this moment Quicken still tells me that Direct Connect is not available for Discover but that Web Connect is and trying to download transactions transfers me to a browser window where I can log into the Discover webpage.

I'll report back when I hear more.

Bernie

"John Pollard" wrote in news:WO2wm.69637$la3.13892@attbi_s22:

I concur with John Pollard on these subjects.

B wrote in news:h9s98e$mf6$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

The replies I got said that OL 295 means there is an update that Quicken needs to install. I do NOT believe that to be correct, and I have all the updates available for Q2008 that I think are available.

} "John Pollard" wrote in } news:h9lrs1$lno$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

} > I don't think Direct Connect has stopped working for Discover. } > Discover downloads have been reporting errors in Quicken on and off } > for several months now, but - at least in my case - it invariably } > happens when there are no transactions to download. } > } > I successfully Direct downloaded a transaction from Discover two days } > ago, on Sept 24; and I successfully Direct connected to Discover twice } > today (had no transactions available to download). Q2008 and Q2009.

Well, not for me: I'd been getting the OL-295's for three days this last weekend, but it sprang back to life yesterday late afternoon. I've always assumed this was some server problem at Discover and one just needed to wait until they rebooted or something...

And I'm also in the crew that has seen this happen off-and-on for the last couple of months. In my case it seems that I can't get in on a Saturday or Sunday and it isn't until Monday late or Tuesday that it all magically starts working again [and so I'd been hypothesizing that something breaks over the weekend and nothing good happens until the techies come back to work on Monday].

/Bernie\

As an ex-techie, I'd tell you that the weekends are when the computers are available for preventive maintenance, engineering changes, and upgrades. That is when the techies are working. At least, I worked most weekends at my customer's computer centers. If I wasn't there, another member of the team was.

I've been having failures with Discover for several weeks. Sometimes one card fails, sometimes the other, sometimes they both fail. It has nothing to do with how many transactions there are to download. I usually just try, try again until it eventually works. Then, there are often transactions that have downloaded.

-- Jim