Discover drops support for OFX

[Jim DeLaHunt]

Update: the log of GnuCash's OFX transaction did not shed light on the 
issue.  I was unable to download transactions even with a hand-crafted 
HTTP request that matched what the forum posts said worked for them. 
However, I was hand-crafting HTTP, not HTTPS, and it's conceivable that 
Discover returns an HTTP 403 status (Not Authorized) for any request 
that isn't HTTPS.

I think it's time to treat this at the developer level, not the user 
level. I opened a bug report to track the problem: 
<https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=781514>. Please follow if 
you are interested.

Best regards,
        --Jim DeLaHunt


On 2017-04-18 23:53, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:
>
> Mark:
>
> On Thu, 9 Mar 2017 14:20:34 -0800, Mark Robinson <mark at mrobinson.ca> 
> wrote:
>> So I got this email from Discover today.
>> "Thank you for your inquiry regarding issue you are experiencing when
>> downloading. I wish to express my sincere apologies for any
>> inconvenience you may have experienced with your Discover account. I
>> am happy to assist you today!
>>
>> I can tell you that Discover no longer supports OFX downloads, some
>> money management programs may need to update their system to be able
>> to continue downloading the transactions. This includes direct
>> download from within a program and downloads from the website. Please
>> contact your software?s support to see if they have a QFX download
>> option.
>>
>> I appreciate your business and the opportunity to be of service. Thank
>> you for choosing to use Discover Card. "
>>
>> Ugh.
>
> I too have a Discover credit card <https://www.discover.com/>. I was 
> able to download transactions on 4. December 2016, but I can't now. 
> Today, I called Discover card customer support, who transferred me to 
> web support. The person there told me that Discover card has 
> definitely not stopped support for OFX transaction delivery, and that 
> it's still supposed to work for current Quicken. He also lacked any 
> access to technical documentation to explain what variety of OFX 
> interaction Discover supports.
>
> So, maybe there is hope.
>
> I'm chasing down some forum discussions which say that other 
> bookkeeping programs have made OFX with Discover work, but it requires 
> a very particular set of HTTP headers in a very particular order.
>
>   * <http://www.ofxhome.com/ofxforum/viewtopic.php?id=47793>
>   * <http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/online-banking/4953-discover-downloads-stopped-working/page/5#comment_42109347>
>   * <http://pocketsense.blogspot.ca/2017/01/comments.html?showComment=1488858632663#c6433672933959876216>
>
> The GnuCash wiki has instructions on making a log of GnuCash's OFX 
> transaction 
> <http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Setting_up_OFXDirectConnect_in_GnuCash_2#Enabling_the_OFX_Log>. 
> I'm going to try that next, and see if I can see anything interesting.
>
> -- 
>      --Jim DeLaHunt,jdlh at jdlh.com      http://blog.jdlh.com/  (http://jdlh.com/)
>        multilingual websites consultant
>
>        355-1027 Davie St, Vancouver BC V6E 4L2, Canada
>           Canada mobile +1-604-376-8953

-- 
     --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh at jdlh.com     http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/)
       multilingual websites consultant

       355-1027 Davie St, Vancouver BC V6E 4L2, Canada
          Canada mobile +1-604-376-8953