What will resolve the internal server error when trying to import from Fidelity Investments

[cwilson7 · Accepted solution]

I had the same problem with Schwab.  I use TurboTax Home and Business running on Windows 7.  After being on the help line for over an hour, these are the 3 things I did to resolve the problem.  I list all three since I'm not sure which one fixed it.

1.  Right click the Turbo Tax icon and select Properties.  Go to the Compatibility tab and select "Run the program in compatibility mode for Windows 7".

2. In the Privilege Level on the same Compatibility tab select "Run this program as an administrator".

3. Uninstall TurboTax and re-install it with the compatibility selections above.

You may also need to deselect "Real time protection" in your firewall if you are using Microsoft Security Essentials.  Also make sure your "3rd party access" is enabled at your broker if that is their requirement to import tax info.

Good luck.

[Robert-J]

Thanks - I was much more than an hour on the phone. I did learn that some of the early releases possibly had some corrupt files.  
I did your steps 1 and 2, and they did not work, so it must be the whole process.  It got thinking when you mentioned windows 7, which is what I am using.  To make sure it didn't lose all my work, I did a clean install on a different machine that is running Win10. It worked, so I copied the file over to the Win10 laptop and am on my way.

Thanks for the response, the effort, and the resulting inspiration.

[cwilson7]

I'm glad you got it working.  It seems that TurboTax is probably better suited to run on Windows 10 but I think maybe if you did step 3 on the Windows 7 computer it might have worked too.  I did learn that uninstalling and re-installing TurboTax does not remove your tax files you worked on.  It just removes and restores the executable file and automatically reloads your tax files when you open TurboTax. That is how it worked for me.  In any case, I'm glad it's working for you. It was a very frustrating problem for me.

[mloveles]

I have Windows 10, TurboTax 2019 Premiere and VPN turned on.  I had to turn off VPN and 2-tier logins for the imports to work.  Once I was done with TurboTax 2019 Premiere, I turned VPN back on. 

I hope this helps.

[Banze]

Thank You!!!! Such a simple operation and it sure did help! It is curious though TTx doesn't advise us to turn-of the VPN to effect the imports.

[ccsaint84]

I ended up resolving the issue by turning off my VPN connection in Norton 360.

[Slaj1720]

I was able to overcome the error message by connecting my Windows 10 laptop to the Ethernet cable (hard wired) instead of using the WIfI. Apparently there’s a time limit imposed on the import function, and the wifi wasn’t fast enough.

[MAJ6470]

Running Windows 11 -- so bizarre that running as administrator and windows 7 compatible made it work.  Thanks to those who posted -- saved me time from calling! 

[SForrestLO]

Glad it worked for you.

@MAJ6470

[deepgoat]

I'm using TT Premier desktop 2024 and had the exact same issue.  I don't use VPN cuz it messes up my work connection, but in desperation (after trying compatibility mode; run as administrator; etc.) I turned VPN ON and it fixed the issue!  Maybe in 2019 TT wasn't meant to go through VPN, but maybe they updated it and now it's required!!  Very disheartening, but thanks for everyone who gave advice.  And if you have the issue, try everything and something will work...I hope.

BTW, it seems like the problem was related to connecting  to a Captcha website, rather than the financial institution, cuz the first thing it wanted me to do was prove I wasn't a robot -- well, no robot could have figured out you have to turn VPN on to get it to work.