Empower 401K
Comments
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Hey everyone, this behavior with Empower is to be expected:
Empower blocks transaction downloads during the hours of 5:01 AM to 11:59 PM PST every day. They do allow account adds to be done. Here is what is being done.
- Account adds will be allowed. The customer will not get any transactions or holdings.
- Batch downloading or any interactive refresh attempts between 12:00 AM and 5:00 AM PDT will return the transactions.
- Customers will get their transactions most commonly through batch, which means we may sync while also seeing the FDP-155 error.
What this means is that the data will still be updated in the background during nightly batch aggregation, but the account will return an FDP-155 (FI blocking) error most of the time. If you're trying to add an Empower account, meaning your account is not already connected for background updates, you will want to continue trying outside of peak hours. Other users have reported success around 4 AM ET.
Thanks!
-Coach Natalie
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I am personally still having this issue as well. I attempted to reconnect the account between 1-5AM and it still errored.
It feels a bit like Engineering hit a roadblock and just threw their hands up with this "it's just going to keep erroring, but may pull in your data each night…. maybe" this seems like they have just given up.
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Mine seems to be working most of the time. Perhaps a monitor could b3 built to monitor for Empower responses with a retry on any that fail during the batch. The retry could be designed to retry every 5-10 m8 utes during Emmpower’s non-restricted window, to avoid overwhelming their servers. It’s possible that many aggregators like Simplifi have programmed their batch update requests to begin at exactly when the non-restricted window opens, resulting in timeouts for some accounts.
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my empower is showing my balance in some places, but not others… very frustrating as it is now throwing off my net worth and other analytics.
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@Coach Natalie since Empower blocks Simplifi between those hours, I’m requesting the following for your roadmap: that Simplifi not display an error to users during the same hours.
It makes Simplifi look broken as every time I use, I am confronted with an error that’s “expected” by you all. If it’s expected, why the error?
Feels like the connection should be smart enough to not bothers users with a false error.
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it is 12:37 AM now PDT. still no connection. I regret to pay this service now/
error message :
Empower does not allow transaction download between 5:00 AM PDT to 11:59 PM PDT
Accounts will be added with no transactions. Your transactions and Holdings will be downloaded the next day for new and existing accounts.
We are unable to connect to Empowerretirement at this time.
Care Code: FDP-155
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just to chime in, I too find this issue problematic but understand that the craziness of the time limitation is mostly on Empower’s side.
I think what most people here are looking for is just to suppress this type of error on the user side, or create a new error code that indicates you are outside the operable hours for refreshing from the bank.
I was successful in re adding the account and now I can finally see my balance. I had to set an alarm for 4am est in order to get this done though, which seems a bit ridiculous.
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Unfortunately I respectfully disagree with your perspective. [removed]. Both of these services consistently display stable account connections and provide daily balance updates.
Moreover, this isn't the only issue I've encountered. I've been experiencing other connection problems as well, including:
- An ongoing issue with Citi Cards/Citibank, where incorrect transactions are being downloaded and users are encountering FDP-390 errors. This problem was reported on September 26, 2024, and as of now, there's no estimated time for resolution.
- A disconnection problem with Wells Fargo accounts, resulting in access denied errors. This issue was reported on September 17, 2024, and users are still awaiting a resolution.
Also, I AM at the operable hours for refreshing from the bank! ( I stayed at 3:30AM EST aka 12:30PM PST) to wait for refreshing the account with failure message indicating below, though I am literally at a time stamp that is operated!.
Empower does not allow transaction download between 5:00 AM PDT to 11:59 PM PDTSimplify is ridiculous. I will not use this service and I will let all friends around knowing and prevent using it.
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The "ongoing" citi issues, according to your date listed, has been "ongoing" for 4 days, 2 of which were on a weekend when typical full time staff at most businesses don't work. So, really, they've been "ongoing" for 2 business days.
-Rob
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Rob Wilkens0 -
Super
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I'm not sure why Simplifi keeps telling everyone that Empower does not allow between 5am PDT and 11:59pm PDT. Those times ware wrong. When I run the debug, it shows:
"aggStatusDetail": "Error 155 Empower Window Blocking Intuit network access from 5 AM PST to 1 AM PST"
They need to correct the message, so people stop trying at 12 am pst and wait until 1AM.
Please update the message. The issue has nothing to do with Simplifi, it's just somthing Empower put in place to make products other than "Empower Personal Dashboard" look bad. But a key piece of advice: If something is free, you are the commodity. Not saying that Simplifi is perfect, but I've really tried most of the others. Hopefully these apps are having issues because they they are so secure…
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it is 3:47 EST in the morning.
I used an alarm, wake up and try to set up the account. Failed. I wont try it again. This [removed - profanity] service does not worth my minutes of at all.
We are unable to connect to Empower Retd. - 401K at this time.
Care Code: FDP-155
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There seems to be a new issue. Now, even when Empower does allow an update, it seems to be asking for 2FA code every time.
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Yes…I’ve noticed that too. In effect, that means we have to be awake to process the 2FA even if Simplifi tries it automatically during the limited hours that Empower allows updates. There should be a setting that if we do it once, we can select “trust this device” or “don’t ask again” or something.
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Right now, I’ve been trying to login for two days at 8 AM Eastern Time, 5 AM PDT Time. I have not been successful. It used to be that I had to input a code for it to refresh, and it’s not even doing that. Is empower down again? Will try again at 7 AM time.
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Is anyone seeing a consistent "batch" update that @Coach Natalie mentioned a few times in previous comments? Yes, the error is annoying when I go into the app to check things, but my balances haven't updated since mid Sept and do not match what I see logging in directly to Empower.
At the very least, if there is a known good time window then Simplifi should be pulling data during that time for us.
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I just try it again at 5:27 AM EST, and it worked. I don’t think this is sustainable, because I woke up this early to go to the gym. I think most people do not wake up early just to try to get the data updated. Will see if it fix tomorrow at 7 AM EST.
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Mine went stale for several weeks as well. Eventually last week it prompted me for 2FA again and ever since has been updating. I wonder if you need to clear your cache/data in order to force it to ask again and get you up and running.
I think the main problem is that Simplifi doesn't seem to do background updates when we're away. As far as I can tell it only pulls for new data in the moment when you open the app.
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Hello @Wedo778,
I'm glad to hear yours is updating again.
If you think that Quicken Simplifi updating in the background, when the app is not open/logged in, may be helpful, then I would recommend adding your vote to this Idea Post:
Ideas that get enough votes may be implemented in the future!
Thank you!
-Coach Kristina
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Anyone know why the constant 2-factor prompt is happening now (when you can finally actually get it to update)?
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Hello @budgetj75,
To assist, could you please clarify what you mean by constant? It is normal for some financial institutions to require multi factor authentication every time the account is refreshed/updated. See the article below for more information:
I look forward to your response!
-Coach Kristina
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@coach Kristina
I appreciate the insight, but since Empower is now only allowing updates 4 hours daily, in the middle of the night for most users, also requiring 2FA for each update essentially requires anyone who wants an update to wake up and manually do this.
Many Financial Institutions and other vendors require 2FA on the first update from a particular device, and allow the account/device owner to choose to “trust this device in the future” and no longer require 2FA. Empower does allow this on another aggregator I use, and it updates without requiring 2FA entries. Without naming the aggregator, it has the initials P.C.Candidly, Simplifi really MUST pursue that option with Empower, as the current solution forces users to get up during the overnight hours every single time they want a routine update. It’s simply not sustainable.
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P.C. owns Empower. As a result they probably don't need to authenticate themselves.
It seems to me like Empower is intentionally making this a bad experience for everyone in order to strong arm people into using their service instead. Feels very similar to some of the slimy tactics BoA uses like when they used to not let me autopay my mortgage because I was using a non-BoA bank account. Not only did I refuse to bow down and open an account with them but I will forever refuse to do any banking or credit cards with them over it. (In the Empower case I have no choice, I don't get to pick who my employer uses for retirement accounts)
I'm not saying QS couldn't do better, there is some easy improvement to be had here. But "PC can do this fine" isn't exactly fair if my suspicion is correct.
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@Coach Kristina by constant I mean every time during (the open window) update, it asks for a 2FA code. We went from it working fine, to a restricted window (with "out of band" updating from Simplifi) to now needing a 2FA code to update it at all.
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@budgetj75, thanks for confirming!
If Empower only allows account updates during that 4-hour window, and they also require MFA, I'm not sure what else we'd be able to do from our end, as both of these items are on the bank's end of things. Are you able to disable MFA with the bank directly to see if doing so allows Quicken Simplifi to update during nightly aggregation without prompting you (if you feel comfortable doing so)?
Let us know!
-Coach Natalie
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@Coach Kristina and @Coach Natalie: this may be getting a bit in the weeds, but you seem to be implying different things. Is there already a nightly update process ("nightly aggregation" per Natalie), or do we need to vote on getting a background update feature implemented (per Kristina).
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@Coach Natalie there is no option for disabling 2fa that I can find in my empower account unfortunately. We are stuck with it.
It’s almost like Empower is a competitor and trying to make it realllllyyy painful for people to use Simplifi in hopes people will come to their platform instead. /s
Unfortunately they might get their wish if we can’t figure something out to make this work better. I think many are in the same boat where net worth tracking is a fundamental feature which is hamstrung by these ridiculous Empower limitations.
I Realize it’s not a simplifi issue directly but without some sort of clever work around it’s going to be tough to stay with Simplifi. Just my .02
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I've noticed that the batch pulling of my Empower account is not happening anymore. I can only update my Empower balance if I happen to get on Simplifi in the middle of the night when Empowers allows their data to be pulled. Not sure why this changed. It's the same across all my devices.
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