Sage 100

Somewhat URGENT: Customer on version 2017.3 was suddenly unable to process payroll starting yesterday. They started getting messages about PR files missing or duplicated. I don't have specifics yet, but will shortly. They worked directly with Sage support, Alec, and he was able to get payroll working in one company. Now they have the same problem in other companies. Gerri at Sage support told them that they are unable to help or support them until they buy and install a corporate anti-virus system for their server. Gerri said that support is ""slammed with this problem"" this week. They are currently using MS Windows Defender, which Sage support says is not sufficient. The IT person is currently rolling back Windows updates to see if that helps. Here's my question: Have any of you heard of this thing where Sage won't support a payroll problem until the customer buys a different AV?

Guessing this is their new CYA statement given the fallout from the Defender Update wiping out these files.

Our helpdesk at Net@Work has seen this same problem. The latest updates to Windows Defender have caused it to treat the older legacy files as suspicious and as a result windows defender is deleting payroll files. I just finished an upgrade to 2017 PU3 on a 2016 server and noticed this happening almost immediately. Fortunately I was aware of the problem and instructed the IT company to remove windows defender from the server.

I've ran into this in Time card as well, the solution we have found thanks to @RhondaMcNamara is the following, the specific files aren't so important as that files are missing and how to rebuild them. ie in time card it was TC_P9XXX.soa and for payroll it was PR8XXX and PRLXXX in our cases.

Yes, not very helpful, but it looks like MS issue. I guess Sage will update approved AVs later in a support matrix. There were a couple of threads on this, here is one of them if it helps provide any info for you Karen. https://90minds-com.socialcast.com/messages/37711937?ref=stream

Do you need to remove defender or can you exclude the Sage subdirectory?

I just had this problem today with a client using windows defender! I had upgraded them to 2017 PU3 and it was working fine for over a week until today. It removed PRB so when they went to run payroll tax calculation, they got the error. The error was #12 line 8825 and in the knowledge base, it recommended re-initializing PR9, PRJ, PRK, PRL and/or PR_02. It didn't address removing the PRB. I did everything else and then started going after the Microsoft Windows Updates from the knowledge base as well after the initial steps were taken. After this was done, I noticed the error was referencing PRB so I also reinitialized that and then their IT company started working on the antivirus so unfortunately we don't know which one fixed the issue. Sage engineering said they were going to update the knowledge base to reflect PRB in the list of files to manual reinitialize. I think once the PRB was manually reinitialized, it started working however does anybody have a solution to the windows defender issue?

We had the same issue with Job Cost. We had to uninstall KB 4054518 on the Windows 7 desktop to get it to work.

In my case the WD deleted the payroll perpetual history file. Luckily i did my go live today and was able to restore the file from the source 2014 installation, as there had been no updates done in that company since the go live. Imagine losing all that information though, if there was no backup. My client had another anti-virus solution in place and we were able to remove WD from the 2016 server completely.

Man, misery loves company! Thank you all for responding so quickly. I'm working with the customer to help them get through this. I really appreciate the feedback!

@JohnKerr (or anyone else) just wondering do you have any ideas why it may have hit the perpetual history file? All these other ones seem to be more or less work files but that one is pretty scary.

Previously the prb and prk files were the ones being deleted. I think WD will target all legacy files. The sooner WD is removed the better. I was able to maually reinialize prk and prb because they're temporary files but the perpetual history file is historical and important. As i said before, I had a backup ready and was very fortunate.

@JeremyFox The perpetual history file I had to rebuild (PRJ sticks in my head) must have been the temporary one it uses to write to history (?) because perpetual history was still there afterward.

Microsoft update KB4051034 or KB4054518 is also causing this kind of havoc. If these are installed, uninstall them.

Windows Defender cannot be uninstalled, only deactivated. We've seen instances where a Microsoft update will reactivate! Sage told me they were working with Microsoft to resolve the issue - I hope that is true.

FYI, the customer I originally posted about had this problem resolved by removing Carbonite backup from their server. Sage did that for them. I suspect that it could have been set to backup at night rather than continuously, and that would have been sufficient. Another customer is still having problems with payroll files being deleted during processing, even though Defender has been disabled, Windows patches rolled back, and Code 42 backup has been set to run only at night. Payroll works cleanly on their server. I spoke with Sage support this morning. The tech says that the engineers are working on a hot fix to defeat wherever the interference is coming from. They hope to have the hot fix available by the end of this week, and we should all be notified when it is available.

It can't come fast enough. We spent a huge hunk of today re-initializing files and other associated issues again for our client that processes payroll for a couple dozen companies. Thank goodness it's semi-monthly and not weekly.

No hot fix yet, but thought I would share the summary of info that I received this morning from Sage.