I think your advice has identified the root of problem. For many years I have created my own directory for TurboTax activity. For example instead of using the default TurboTax document directory I elected each year to place each year's activity in it's own individual directory. For example:
C:\TURBOTAX2021
C:\TURBOTAX2022
C:\TURBOTAX2023
C:\TURBOTAX2024
So I ran the 2023 version of TurboTax again and it automatically updated before opening up. Whatever updates that had happened since time I filed last April and now apparently had lost the location of hard drive path (C:\TURBOTAX2023) that I had been using and I was simply given the usual invitation to start a new tax preparation for 2023.
I also remember that another TurboTax user with similar problem had commented this year that he was furious because the NYS tax part of TurboTax needed the precious year's federal adjusted gross income as a NYS eFile requirement but at time of submission you are given chance to edit this value but it is not displayed until you attempt to edit it (so if you are filing flawlessly year after year you might presume the value in there is again correct and just proceed forward). Because I had read that comment this year I edited the 2023 AGI and sure enough it was wrong and would would have likely caused NYS to reject my eFile if I hadn't corrected it.
The other thing with this scenario is that with my TurboTax being maintained in independent directories instead of default document directory and TurboTax no longer able to remember where last year's files were placed I do not see a way to import the previous year's file when working on this year's taxes.
If TurboTax upgrades have moved towards making the default document directory into a mandatory directory it should have at least given directions to copy everything into the default document directory before starting tax preparation I think. If not intending to have mandatory then should fix the bug caused by updates since April 2023.
