Macos TurboTax 2023 - Why does the UI for entering 1099-B Investments have a scrollbar when the desktop screen has a lot of room? This is painful. Can it be fixed?

[tom-carr5835]

The window should automatically expand horizontally to use up the available space and not always be a shorter horizontal span and always have scrollbar.  To edit or delete transactions is cumbersome as it is, and this makes it worse.  If you have a lot of transactions you don't even know the horizontal scrollbar exists.  Is there a way to configure this to layout the window to use the available space?  Or can a bug/ticket be filed to fix this?

[SteamTrain]

A very few people have experienced this for some strange reason.

Don't know what the final fix was...but call Customer Support and see if they have one on their list:

What is the TurboTax phone number? (intuit.com)

[tom-carr5835]

Thanks.  I spoke to someone using the phone number you provided.  There doesn't appear to be a fix for this issue.  They said it works properly in the online version of the same form.  As I use this year's version I'm also finding similar issues on other data entry pages and forms.  The UI team should really fix this issue.

[SteamTrain]

@tom-carr5835 

I did have one other thought,  am clueless as to whether it helps at all, but worth a try.

I notice that when I close my TTX software (but on a Windows computer), that when I restart it, it opens with the same size window that I used when I shut it down.

______

So, on a flying chance that it works.

1)  With TTX open, change the window size to full-screen.

2) Then shut down TTX.

3) Re-start TTX, and then open your file with the screen already at that full size, and see if it makes those sub-windows any larger.

Yeah, grasping at straws.

One wonders if there is some issue with certain graphics processors.

....see if driver updates are available for you grahics processor?

[tom-carr5835]

@SteamTrain  Thanks again for thinking through some of this.  Unfortunately TurboTax always opens with a fixed width that's different than where I last closed it.  The 2022 version also used a smaller fixed width but TurboTax increased the font on some of the screens and in the case of the 1099-B Sales summary page it added additional columns to show more data for each sales summary in the review that ends up on Form 8949 (Sales and Other Dispositions of Capital As

In the 2022 version the columns in the summary table only had columns (Description, Date Sold, Gross Proceeds and two action text buttons labelled Edit and Delete).  The 2023 version of the same table is about the same viewport width as the 2022 version but the 2023 version now has 8 visible columns in the viewport and two icon action buttons hidden offscreen.   The 2023 columns include (checkbox, Description, Date Sold, Sales section, Proceeds, Cost basis, Gain/loss, Status and the two offscreen icons for edit and delete).  The 2022 version has no horizontal scrollbar whereas the 2023 version has the scrollbar.

[SteamTrain]

@tom-carr5835 

Have heard of others with similar...but not the same problem.

They got stuff to display correctly if they switched to a different screen resolution....I would guess a lower resolution, because people almost always use the MAX from the get-go.

A strange workaround that probably shouldn't be required, but it might get you through.

Minimum for either MAC or Windows is at least 1024 x 728.....so somewhere between that and where your screen is set to now.

[tom-carr5835]

@SteamTrain Thanks.  I just tried a bunch of resolution changes and the results stayed the same, with the same columns being shown and the edit and delete buttons not visible.  Not sure why the windows don't re-layout on window-size-change events.  Looks like we'll have to tough this one out and home TurboTax fixes this at some point.   Side note: while I was trying various resolution changes I ran into a number of TurboTax hangups after trying to go to Federal Taxes...Wages & Income...I'll Choose What I Work On.  It check displayed the Calculating... popup and never returned.  Happened multiple times.

Also, ran into another interesting problem that looks like a bug when two returns are being edited.  As part of the size change experiment I opened my existing return, sized the window to be larger, and then opened a second new return.  I entered a 1099-B sale in the new return to see if the layout width was any different.  It was the same size as the other.  The weird thing that happened was when I went back to my existing return and pressed the Update button to enter the 'Stocks, Cryptocurrency, Mutual Funds, Bonds, Other' section and then  TurboTax popped up an error overlay stating 'Hmmm, looks like we've hit a snag.   We recommend you revisit the last topic you were working on to make sure all your info's correct'.  That error overlay has one button labelled 'Sounds good'.  TurboTax would never let me back into that section, giving the same error over and over.  If I closed my current return, without quitting TurboTax, and opened it again the same 'Hmmm' error overlay was shown.   If I quit TurboTax and then reopen my current return I don't get the error.  However, the brokerage entry that I made in the other new return, that I closed and deleted, is showing up in my real return.  Seems like there's a concurrency issue when two returns are being edited.

[SteamTrain]

Don't know.

Not sure what you mean by Concurrency though.

You can't have two tax files open at the same time on the desktop software...if that's what you meant.

Find another computer to run it on?  Good luck.

[tom-carr5835]

@SteamTrain  🙂    Same problem on my wife's macbook.   Asked someone to try this on Windows.  Neither problem occurs.  Window's TurboTax viewport window appears about the same size but it looks like it uses a smaller font so all columns show up.

yes, opened up a second file while having my 2023 return file open.  Modifying the second file looks like it modified the data in the first file.   Looks like a bug.  Probably have to file a different bug report  elsewhere.

This problem doesn't occur on Windows because the TurboTax Windows version forces you to close one file before starting on another.

[SteamTrain]

MAC shouldn't allow it either (two files at once?...sounds fishy).

@macuser_22     Anny comments about this...I've never used a MAC.