Your Guide to Testing and Repairing Corrupted Templates

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Recently, one of the forums I participated in had a member write in about some corrupted transactions. It seemed they couldn't even open these transactions without QuickBooks crashing.

When this occurs, there can be several different types of data damage that could produce the defect. One of the most common is template damage.

Many times, transactions that will not open or cannot be deleted have a transaction template error. When they were saved, the transaction template was valid, but at some point, something subsequently caused the template to become corrupted.

Such corruption can occur if QB shuts down or the connection to the QB Database Server is lost with a transaction open but no portion of it saved.

You sometimes can review each and every template from the template list (for that specific transaction type) and see if any prove to be the culprit. In some cases, you can restore the template to it's default format and will no longer be corrupted.

But if it's the standard template that became corrupted, that's an entirely different matter that will require professional repairs.

So, let's look at the procedures to test for and repair corrupted templates:

Testing for a Corrupted Template

First, begin by creating a Custom Template within a QuickBooks sample company:

  1. Open a QuickBooks sample company
  2. Create a custom template similar to the template that's not working
  3. Test the template in the sample/test company to assure it works
  4. Export the new template to your desktop

Second, import the Custom Template into your Company file:

  1. Open your QuickBooks Company file
  2. Import the custom template from your desktop
  3. Open a form that can use the test template
  4. Test to see if your issue still occurs with the test template

Third, evaluate the results:

  1. If the issue does not occur with the test template, your actual template may be damaged
  2. If the issue still occurs with the test template, your template list may damaged

Repairing a Corrupted Template

  1. In the menu bar, select Lists, then choose Templates.
  2. Right click on the damaged template, and then click the Templates down arrow at the bottom left.
  3. On the drop-down menu, click Duplicate.
  4. On Select Template Type, select the appropriate type of template and click OK
  5. Double click on the copy of the template – this opens the Basic Customization window.
  6. Click Advanced Customization at the bottom of the Basic Customization window.
  7. At the bottom, center of the Advanced Customization window, click the button Default. Please note this will delete all of the modifications in the template and reset it to the original default format.
  8. Click OK on the Additional Customization window.
  9. Click OK on the Basic Customization window.
  10. Test the defaulted copy of the template. If these steps resolved the issue, recreate the template using the copy. But if the default does not resolve your issue, you may need to repair the Template List (below).

Repair the Template List

  1. Resort the Template List.
  2. If the issue still is not resolved, Back-up your Company file.
  3. Use the procedure (above) to Repair a Corrupted Template for all of your custom templates returning each to their default state.
  4. Run the Rebuild Data utility after you return all templates to default.
  5. If the issue persists, you need to obtain professional data file repair assistance. You may wish to contact Intuit Data Services.