I just got notice that my state return was accepted, on the 4th try. So I wanted to provide an update to share what worked for me because there have been so many comments. I did not want to 0 out my charitable contribution because I did not want my federal and state taxes to not match even if it's not a big deal I just didn't want to risk it.
My CA return was rejected for the first time on the 15th, I re-filed the 17th and it was almost immediately rejected, and then filed again the 17th with a rejection today (18th). After I received this last rejection, I followed the advice of the person/people who said to go back into your federal return, delete the $ contribution from the federal taxes, I walked through the rest of the federal return and then at the end, went back and re-added the $ contribution. Walked the rest of the way through the federal and then all the way through the state taxes again, and then I clicked on "file". It actually prompted me to revisit the error, but I decided not to touch that button and instead just hit file at the bottom.
My CA return was just approved within 2 hours. Hopefully everyone is able to get their returns done and accepted, and after having zero complaints (and several really complicated tax years) for years and years using TT, I am incredibly disappointed and will likely be using another service or person next year.
