'Print/Email Invoices' function not accessible, 'Unable To Connect' mssg

Thanks ChrisMYOB . I presume that there is a timeout occurring when the print/email invoices option is selected, because the window wants to load all the invoices as per the current advanced settings. And for this client, there are more invoices than the online system can handle, especially if the option to display/print all invoices is the current selected option.

Coral3 , how often do you bulk print invoices - daily, or less often? And on a daily basis, what are your average and peak invoice counts?

I had an attempt at this yesterday evening after hours.  

Our file is online only.  It used to be possible to just go offline, then back online from within the file but this function was removed with an update some time ago. 

I did manage to create a separate offline version of the file & that allowed me to access the print/email invoices lists. 

To clear the unsent email invoices list requires much more time than I had last night though as I will have to manually change the 'send to' address on each one individually.  (Many of our customers will not be happy if I load up their inboxes with two months worth of past invoices, so the only way to clear them seems to be to send them to my own email address).  Each time I change the 'send to' address it also pops up with a 'Do you want to update email contact details for this customer' etc...so it's will be a very tedious & time-consuming process when there are many invoices to clear. 

I tried doing just a few to see if it would work but the offline version of our company file would not allow me to email.  I would either need to spend more time setting up the email functionality in the offline file, or it's just not possible to email from an offline file? - not sure which & perhaps you can enlighten me on if that's possible or not?

IF this is the only way to fix the issue (ie by creating a separate offline file from a backup, going in to the offline file to clear the Print/Email lists, then restoring the offline file over the top of our online file) then I need to do it after hours over the weekend as it's going to take quite some time.  

Is there any other way to bulk-clear unsent email invoices other than emailing them?  (Note: it is the 'Email Invoices' which now has a large backlog to clear. There were only a small handful of unprinted invoices sitting in the 'Print Invoices' list.)  Can they be purged from the 'unsent' some other way?

What is the root cause of the issue?  I'm assuming the diagnostic gave indication of the cause?  Is it an internet speed issue?  Something else?

We are generating approx 100 - 150 invoices per day.  

They are all printed at time of recording, so (except for an occasional one) they do not appear in the unprinted 'Invoices to Print' list.  

Approx 60 - 70% of customers are on the 'Print and Email invoices' setting as they require emailed copies.  So probably around 70 - 100 invoices would be going to the 'Email Invoices' list per day.  

While we were still able to access the Print/Email invoices lists we were emailing all unsent invoices daily. 

So I've been trawling the MYOB 'support' pages again this evening, hoping to find more info. 

It appears from this info here that it will NOT be possible to email the unsent invoices from an offline copy of our company file-?

https://help.myob.com/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=10656034

Hello Coral3 

Sorry for the delay in my response. 

You are unable to use AccountRights inbuilt email system, but you should be able to set up that Outlook is the default and email through Outlook while your file is offline. 

I have linked a Help Article on how you can set up Microsoft Outlook as the default email method.

Hello, again Chris

I have done as suggested, ie restored the file OFFLINE, cleared all invoices sitting in both the 'unprinted' and 'unsent email' lists.  Checked that advanced filter is ticked for 'unsent only'.  Restored that file back ONLINE.  

After doing that after hours last night, I WAS able to open the print / email invoices section (noting that there were no invoices appearing in the lists on opening as they'd been cleared).  HOWEVER, this morning we are back to getting the same 'Unable to connect' error message as before. 

So... not fixed.  

I note that when I managed to access the lists offline that there was NOT a huge number of invoices in there appearing as unsent...maybe 100 or so... (this would be because we have been - tediously! - opening each invoice and emailing them one by one at the end of each day, plus all invoices are printed on creation)... and that the advanced setting was already checked for 'unprinted/unsent invoices only'.    So I'm not convinced it's a volume issue as suggested, as previous to this problem arising in June we were routinely able to access the lists with more invoices that that sitting in there, without issue. 

I eagerly look forward to your solution to this problem, as it continues to waste a lot of staff time & it is not feasible for us to contine like this.  

Thank you. 

Hello Coral3 

It could be a timeout issue while the file is online, I would suggest the following this post guiding how to extend the timeout extender.

I would also suggest flushing the DNS cache as this could also be impacting it since it isn't working online but working locally.

To Flush the DNS

1. Press the Windows Key on your keyboard
2. Type in: cmd
3. In the list of results, right-click on cmd.exe and choose Run as Administrator
4. A command prompt window should appear
5. At the flashing cursor, type in: ipconfig/flushdns
6. Hit Enter on your keyboard and a confirmation message should be displayed - If not, retry steps 4-5 and ensure the command is typed correctly
7. After the confirmation message, close the window
8. Close AccountRight then re-open the software
   
   Please let me know how you go.