Turbo Tax never responds after pressing "Done with Income"

[JeanneLO]

If you tried all of the suggestions in this thread, please follow the instructions in this TurboTax FAQ to contact customer support for assistance:  What is the TurboTax phone number?

@JAKnarr

[AllanGibbs]

After several frustrating freeze crashes, I attempted yet again to launch the program and was advised that I have to update, which I do whenever prompted (every time it runs, I think).  The program ran its update, then said it was restarting but the dialog window just disappeared!

Repeat.  Repeat again, only this time the dialog says the update is 'critical' and cannot be skipped, and after it ran I got a program installation crash with an offer to tell Microsoft about it.  Great, do they  care either?  I followed the error code link, which eventually offered some help: an update is required, do it manually.  I have attempted to install all updates, but now every time it leads directly to a crash.  So I downloaded the 'manual update' file from TurboTax and ran it.  Same result, program crashes (not Windows 10).

Two deep breaths; how much time have I wasted?  Ok, uninstall the program completely.  Reboot.  Install program fresh from the CD, it goes online to get initial updates as I wait anxiously for it to crash.  It didn't!  It found my unfinished return and let me work on it, although the same glitch still occurs when clicking on the income, done with section button = program freeze.

I can't believe TurboTax is allowing this to continue without an update fix.  Everybody using the program needs to click on the Done button as they finish each interview section of income; seems to me that TT reputation is on the line for this one.  I have taken the time to describe what is happening because I believe there are many others out there wrestling to get their return done, and TT needs to know they have a faulty product out there.

[jim13]

Same problem here .. 2020 TurboTax Premier for Mac, hangs when finished with income, also hangs when quitting the program.  Luckily I am saving my work as I go.  This is the first time that I can remember having a bug or failure in the TurboTax software. Normally it runs like a champ.  Hopefully Intuit will fix the issue shortly.

This started happening after I downloaded transactions from my broker.  I have over 2000 transactions and wonder if the sheer volume of records loaded is causing this issue.

One last issue - when I chose Quit from the Turbotax menu, the application hangs and I have to eventually use the Force Quit process at the Mac OS level

[JAKnarr]

Ok - so here's what I did.  Since the program stalls right before the Capital Gains, Stocks., etc.,  section, I started the whole thing over without importing financial records from brokers etc.. When I got to that section, I used the menu bar at the top to move past that section entirely and went to the next section. I entered all of the required information from that point on, using the step-by-step as usual only as if I had no financial records to add. AFTER I finished entering everything else, I went back and imported the necessary financial documents WITHOUT using the step-by-step. After I got myself off the floor (after 10 times reinstalling, uninstalling, starting over, etc etc... and then after importing the necessary financial documents which made the numbers change dramatically... LOL) I went to the review section and checked my return for errors, correcting anything that came up  as a possible error from there. Then I did my state return (uneventful). I am assuming it's all correct. However, when I tried to print a PDF to review and for my records it said I needed to print 1,780 pages. What?!?! Um, no.... So, I just printed my return as it would be to send in and that's that. I am thinking though, that I will redo my taxes in HR Block or some other tax reporting software, just to check that all of the numbers are the same before I will send it in. This is what worked for me (as far as I can tell...) - Good luck! p.s. One thing the rep I spoke to advised me of (before all of this stuff I did as a work-around)  is that the program can not handle more than 2000 Capital Gain/brokerage/stock entries. I didn't have that many so it was finally determined that the software is likely flawed. She emailed me a fresh, directly downloadable copy - still glitched in the same spot. 

[JAKnarr]

Nope - has nothing to do with kids... It's a glitch in that spot... I don't have any kids at home, none as dependents. It just happens when you try to move past the income section. See my other response here. WITHOUT clicking 'next section' I just went to the top of the screen and used the menu bar to select the next section to work on... then after I finished doing everything from that point, through... went back and imported whatever documents I needed to include in the Capital Gains/Stocks section. 

[jwaltn]

If I read this long thread right the TT hanging issue occurred already in last years version, I see it now in the 2020 version as of today, all updates done... Is there any word out if and when Intuit will fix this bug? 

Basically you can't use any guided walk me through everything approach. You have to pick each section yourself separately and hope that you don't run into the hang bug nevertheless. Save work after each little step. You have to kill the TT program and might loose work if you haven't saved the last step.... All quite annoying. Could maybe a Intuit developer comment on this please.

[LindseyLO]

Have you tried clearing your cache? This may help. Help with doing so has been provided by clicking here.

[jim13]

Clearing your cache will do exactly nothing if one is using the CD/Downloaded version.  TT customer support’s answer for this issues was “don’t do that, go to each individual topic separately”.  

[JAKnarr]

Thank you, but I really wish you all would stop blaming the caches over and over and over.  Having spent over an hour with a turbotax expert, to whom I granted remote access to my iMac, it was determined that this glitch has NOTHING to do with clearing caches.  The turbotax software has a serious glitch affecting BOTH the CD version and the direct download and I am really dismayed that your tech team isn't fixing this. The ONLY way to make this work is to NEVER click the 'Done With Income' button. This is my own 'work-around'...  Without importing ANY financial documents from their respective organizations (stocks, Cap Gains, etc), I entered all other information up to the point of 'Done With Income', saving after every single entry.  At the point of 'Done With Income', I went up to the menu at the top of the screen and selected the next section manually. From that point, the 'easy step' guide seemed to work fine. After completing every category that I needed to enter, I then imported my documents from financial organizations - stocks, capital gains etc..  After that was finished, I manually selected 'Review' and using the review process, I corrected/amended anything within the income section one by one as the review pointed them out to me. My state taxes followed without incident. Taxes done, the program said that I had no errors... but the thing is I no longer TRUST this program to have calculated everything correctly because of that glitch. I have downloaded H&R Block and will do my taxes again with that software in order to compare everything before submitting anything. I'm sorry, but your company's continuing refusal to fix this glitch is likely going to cost you some loyal customers. As a p.s. I was also advised during this debacle,  that this software won't work if you have more than 2000 financial entries (stocks, bonds, etc). I didn't have over 2,000 entries, but if anyone reading this does, this detail might help explain some of the trouble you're experiencing. That information appears to me missing in the product advertising for 'turbotax Premier'.

[taxCrashes]

The immediately preceding post is almost word for word what I would write, except that mine is on Win10 rather than a mac. So it's an even deeper programming bug.

In this thread it sure seems that most of the intuit employees are giving completely wrong, unhelpful, time wasting suggestions that just create work with no dream of actually helping.

I can kind of understand why these message boards would allow thumbs up but not thumbs down, since thumbs down might discourage some people from posting. But if we could thumbs down the clearly incorrect employee posts, at least, I don't think any of them would quit their lucrative jobs, and it would allow for greater accuracy in this forum.

And however this thread got marked as "Solved:" is clearly another error.

[JAKnarr]

That is ridiculous and yet another reason why they have likely lost me as a customer... while the agent who worked with me was very nice... she had NO CLUE how to fix this. She determined it was a software issue, not a client (cache or other) issue. And yet, they still don’t offer any patches to repair the problem?? This issue is far from ‘solved’ and I plan to make sure they’re clear on that. :(

[JAKnarr]

@AllanGibbs Please look for my response (two of them) and give my ‘work around’ a try? While someone has marked this issue as ‘solved’, it isn’t.  

[dogman717]

I can report the same frustrating behavior also using CD/Download product on Win 10. Good news is that I followed the workaround advice from @JAKnarr and managed to get my taxes filed. I believe everything was correct because I'm retired (only investment income, and from a single brokerage) and the bottom line pretty much matched the estimated tax calculations I had made for the year.

One clarification: in my experience, the hang behavior was tied not specifically to clicking a "next income" button in the guided tour method, but to accessing the investment income section after at least one 1099-B file had been imported (either by "next income section" button  or direct access). At first I thought maybe just one of my three 1099-Bs was to blame, but I tested by importing each one at a time into a fresh return, and always got the hang behavior after one had been imported and I tried to access the Investment Income section. One of the TT support folks I first talked to suggested deleting the imported files and starting over, but the attempt to delete hung me too, so I had to keep deleting the return file and starting a new one. Also, it was only the 1099-B imports that caused the problem -- I was able to import the other 1099 forms (DIV, INC, MISC) without experiencing any issues.

Additional strange behavior: I imported one 1099-B, then went to import a second one, and I got the following message: "We notice you had more than 3000 financial transactions to import. Turbotax wasn't designed to handle this many transactions. We apologize! Please contact us to request a refund..." I did not have more than 3000 transactions (less than 2000 in fact), and I did not get that message at initial import. 

Summary of what worked for me, based on @JAKnarr advice: started a new return; imported only my 1099-DIV, 1099-INC, and 1099-MISC files; did the rest of my return, using the "let me choose" approach, never accessing the Investment Income section; imported my 1009-B files (all at once); then did the review. I was afraid that the first transaction in need of attention would mess everything up, but it did not -- I was able to step through the 150 or so corrections without incident. I avoided ever going to the Investment Income section.

Hope Intuit manages to get this fixed soon. FWIW, one of my support encounters was with a specialist who seemed to get what was going on and said he made copious notes about my issue. The support ticket number was [social security number removed].

[dogman717]

support ticket number was 4 7 5 2 3 7 4 2 3

[Anonymous]

Thanks for this suggestion. I have the exact same issue as you. Three customer support later, still no solution from TurboTax. They keep going through this cycle of " do your windows updates and reinstall TurboTax" solution which doesn't get anywhere. Its mind-boggling to me that TurboTax would not acknowledge such a critical product issue. I specifically paid for TurboTax Premier for this functionality and that's the one that's not working. Needless to say, I won't be using TurboTax ever again.