Troubleshooting & Support
Fixes for the issues you are most likely to hit, how to capture a diagnostics bundle for Pivoten support, and how to reach us.
Common issues
"QuickBooks shows a permission dialog"
On first connection, choose Yes, always allow access so Lift Off does not prompt on subsequent runs. The dialog appears in QuickBooks itself, not in Lift Off — switch to the QuickBooks window if you do not see it.
"QuickBooks Desktop does not appear to be running"
Open QuickBooks Desktop and load your company file, then click Check again on the System Checks panel. Lift Off will not open QuickBooks for you.
"Cannot access company file"
The path saved in your workspace no longer points to the .qbw file. Use Reconfigure extraction… from the workspace menu (top-right corner) to browse for the file again.
"Cannot reach S3"
Your internet connection is down, or a firewall is blocking outbound HTTPS traffic to s3.amazonaws.com:443. Check your network settings or ask your IT department to allow that address. See System Requirements for details.
"Extraction fails mid-run"
Click Start Extraction again — Lift Off resumes from the last completed step rather than starting over. If the error recurs on the same step, enable verbose logging (below) and send the diagnostics bundle to Pivoten support.
"N records couldn't be read" or "N dollar amounts couldn't be read" on the Review step
The extracted file may be incomplete or damaged — an interrupted transfer, antivirus interference, or a QuickBooks report that returned malformed data. Nothing was dropped silently: unreadable records and unreadable amounts are counted and excluded from the figures rather than treated as zero, and the report will not show green while any remain. Re-run the extraction to capture a clean copy; if the message persists, send the diagnostics bundle to Pivoten support.
"Some data types were skipped" in the extraction summary
A data type that failed during extraction is skipped and listed rather than left silently incomplete — the snapshot records which ones (so a later verification knows they are absent, not empty). Run the extraction again to pick up the skipped types; if the same type fails repeatedly, enable verbose logging and contact support.
"Snapshot file not found" when loading a bundle
Make sure the .zip file is somewhere Lift Off can read and is not blocked by antivirus software. If the bundle was copied from another machine, verify the transfer finished before opening it.
"I closed the app while extraction was running"
Reopen Lift Off — it detects the in-progress extraction and returns you to the Extract step, where you can monitor or cancel it (cancelling asks you to confirm first — completed steps stay saved for resume). The extraction keeps running in the background as long as the app is open.
QuickBooks says the company file "cannot be closed … another application … is using it"
QuickBooks shows this when an application still has a session open on the company file. While an extraction is running that is expected — let the run finish, or cancel it, before you close QuickBooks. If you see it when Lift Off is idle, close Lift Off completely: that releases the session, and you can then close or switch the company file. A fully updated Lift Off releases the session as soon as each step finishes and should not trigger this while idle — if it still does, turn on verbose logging and send Pivoten the diagnostics bundle.
Verbose logging & the diagnostics bundle
When a run misbehaves, the fastest path to a fix is to reproduce it with verbose logging turned on and send Pivoten the resulting diagnostics bundle. The bundle is a single self-contained archive, so support can diagnose your run without asking you for individual files.
- Enable verbose logging — Open the workspace menu (top-right corner) and choose Enable verbose logging.
- Reproduce the run — Start the extraction again so the problem occurs with detailed logging active.
- Find the bundle — Lift Off writes a
liftoff-diagnostics-….tar.gzfile to your Documents/LiftOff Exports folder — on success or failure, so a crashed run still leaves one. - Send it to support — Email the bundle to support@pivoten.com and describe what you saw.
The bundle contains the run log (every entity, report row counts, per-entity counts, and timings), the extracted data snapshot, and the exact QuickBooks request/response traces for the run.
Data: the bundle holds the same QuickBooks data already in your snapshot — it is not a new category of information beyond what the upload already carries. Size: because it captures every query, the bundle can be large (hundreds of MB) on big company files. Turn verbose logging back off after troubleshooting to avoid producing large bundles on routine runs.
Where Lift Off saves files
| File | Location |
|---|---|
| Data snapshot & report archive | Documents/LiftOff Exports |
Migration Package (.migr8.pivoten.zip) | Documents/LiftOff Exports |
Diagnostics bundle (.tar.gz, verbose runs) | Documents/LiftOff Exports |
If the Documents folder is unavailable, Lift Off falls back to the OS cache directory and then the temp directory.
Contacting support
When you reach out to Pivoten, include:
- A short description of what you were doing and what went wrong.
- The diagnostics bundle from a verbose run (see above), if you can reproduce the issue.
- Your QuickBooks edition and Windows version.
Email support@pivoten.com or contact your Pivoten account team directly.