1099r box 9a can't be zero according to Turbotax, but the box is zero on the actual 1099r. The 1099 was downloaded and is for monthly pension payments. What is wrong?

You need to just leave it blank.  For that box, it's a percentage amount so 0% is the same thing as a blank in terms of the reporting on your 1099R.  But, the TurboTax program reads the 0 as an actual number and will kick back an error because it is expecting a usable value for that entry (like 1%).

Actually, Turbotax put the zero in the form during the import of the 1099R, not me.  However, I deleted the zero, then the error was resolved.  Thanks for your help and explanation.