Empty sub-portfolios

[monotonicus]

Mark,

I created a couple of new portfolios at the top level for some option trading accounts, so none of the investments were in common with my stock portfolios. All were imported OFX transactions..no positions were downloaded.

1) The first portfolio created with only one hitch. There were a number of investments that listed as blank. I selected one and hit the delete button. Fund Manager shut down with no messages. I got back in and deleted the others using FM menu.

2) The second portfolio, importing from a transactionless account, had problems. All of the investments in the first portfolio were added to the second portfolio, which in reality had no transactions.

I deleted both portfolios using Windows File Explorer with the intent to start over. No investment files were deleted, and I left them in place. While I was in Windows File Manager, I noticed my original top level portfolio (neither of these two new ones) was outside the investment folder, moved it into the investment folder, and opened it.

3) It had 6 reconciled sub-portfolios (with hundreds of transactions) and all 6 came up empty.

I closed it and moved it back out...however, they are all still empty.

I'll bet I am getting schooled in backups and using Windows File Manager.

Can you help me get my 6 sub-portfolios' content back, as the number one priority? The other two issues, I thought, are inconvenient, but I can try to work around them.

Thanks!

Mike

[Mark]

Hi Mike,

A lot of stuff there... Let me clarify the difference between sub-portfolios and portfolio files. A portfolio file is a file with the extension .mm4 and it saves your whole workspace, including all of your sub-portfolios, and what investments are located in each sub-portfolio. Usually you only have 1 portfolio file, and just use as many sub-portfolios as you need. Sub-portfolios are what you can see on the left hand side of the Portfolio Editor window.

When you first opened your original top level portfolio after moving it, did you get any error messages? I would have expected you to get some errors about it not being able to find the investment files, and giving you an opportunity to browse to their location. Fund Manager portfolio files (*.mm4) store the location of the included investment files in a relative manner to the location of the portfolio file itself. In your case the investment files were in a folder beneath the location of the portfolio file, but when you moved the portfolio file, that relative location was no longer valid. If you opened the portfolio, got the error messages, did not locate the investment files, and then closed the portfolio with "Options / Save Portfolio on Exit" turned on, you would have saved the portfolio file with no investments.

To fix this, you can either re-open all the investments into each sub-portfolio, or you could restore a backup. Fund Manager automatically makes backups for you. See "Options / General Preferences... / Data". This will show you the frequency and location of your automatic backups. Use "File / Restore..." to browse to this folder, and select (by date modified) the most recent backup before that problem happened.

[monotonicus]

Mark,

There were no error messages when I opened the moved portfolio.

I think what you say fits my situation except I do not "Save on Exit." I do typically Save when requested, though. What really happened is unknown at this point.

The most recent backup is the 15th, prior to the reconciliation process. So I think I want to open the investments into the sub-portfolios. However, do I need to manually match them up? ..there are some generated names and some with dash 1, dash 2 etc. Is there a way to be sure which sub-portfolio an investment belongs in? Even if I go back to the csv files and spreadsheets, I need to determine homes for the FM-generated investment files.

Thanks for your help.

Mike

[Mark]

Hi Mike,

Yes, you would manually need to determine which investment belongs in which account. There is no way to tell just from the investment's filename, which sub-portfolio it belonged in. I would suggest opening all of them up into a new temporary sub-portfolio. Then, from within Fund Manager you can look at the properties and transactions to determine which of your accounts it belongs in. Then, just drag it from the temp sub-portfolio into the appropriate account sub-portfolio.

When you use "File / Open Investment(s)..." you can select multiple investments at once, so just grab all of them and open them all at once.

[monotonicus]

Mark,

That wasn't too bad. They are all now correct and reconciled, and backed up.

Is there a way to safely cull the unused investment files? There are some dups and other junk in there. If I look in them the appear to be legit, but they may not have a balance forward transaction, or they may be an artifact of the OFX download (blank), or they may just be a simple dup of a real, now-included-in-portfolio, investment.

I'd like to leave a clean trail.

Thanks for your excellent and timely help!

Mike

[Mark]

Hi Mike,

You want to make sure you don't delete any investment file in use. One way to help figure this out is to modify all investments you have open, and then sort your file list by date modified. Any that didn't get modified should be safe to delete (or at least temporarily move into some other folder). One easy way to modify all investments is to use "Investment Properties... / Password / Apply to All Open Investments". Set this, and then do a "File / Save All Investments".

[monotonicus]

Mark,

That worked well.

The names look funny but I can live with that. ("1" and "2" suffixes are randomly appearing in the inactive versus active folder.)

I think that wraps it up. Now I can play with the graphs and reports with real data.

Thanks again.

Mike