If your users are reporting issues with the data provided from Plaid but are able to establish a successful connection with their financial institution, they are experiencing a data quality issue. These types of issues often do not have an associated error code. There are two broad types of issues that can occur relating to data quality, including:
- Missing data, such as accounts, transactions within a certain date range, or other data
- Incorrect data, such as mis-categorized account types or incorrect transaction signs
With these types of issues, it is important that you have access to a Plaid identifier associated with the user's connection such as an item_id, access_token, or account_id since the identifier will show the status of the Item and the latest background update connections.
If your application does not associate a plaid identifier with your user, refer to How do I provide troubleshooting Identifiers? for information on implementing logging in your application.
Missing Data Issues
The first step to investigate a missing data issue is to determine whether the user's Item is in an error state or is updating successfully. In many cases, missing data issues are really due to an underlying connection issue that is occurring when Plaid attempts to get fresh information for the user's Item. For example, when a user connects their accounts using the Transactions product, Plaid periodically communicates with the financial institution (typically between 1-4 times per day, depending on the institution) to get the latest transactions data and any updates to accounts. If this update fails, no new data will be available for the Item.
If the newest data associated with an Item is missing, this likely means that an issue is preventing the updates from completing successfully. To be sure, use the Item Debugger tool in the Plaid Dashboard to get the current status of the Item. If the Item is in an error state then updates are failing, and the Item Debugger will provide more detail on the cause of the error.
With a Plaid Error Code
If the Item Debugger shows that the Item is in an error state, click the error code to navigate to the corresponding page in the Errors section of the Plaid Docs. This page will contain specific information on what causes the error and how the user can take action to resolve the issue. Examples of actions the user may be able to take include:
- Use Link update mode to complete new MFA requirements
- Use Link update mode to update their password (note that a changed username requires that the user create a new connection)
- Complete required actions in their online banking portal, such as accepting new terms or resolving account locks
If the user is encountering an error where they cannot take action to resolve it, or the actions recommended do not resolve the issue, it is possible that there is an underlying issue with the Plaid's connection to that particular financial institution. You can use the Institution Status pane on the dashboard to view the current status for a Plaid institution connection, including the current success rates of connections and any known issues that we've identified.
If you need further assistance, open an institution support case for missing data using your identifier, and our Support Team will investigate the underlying error in our systems to troubleshoot further.
Without a Plaid Error Code
In some cases, data can be missing but the Item is healthy and successfully updating. If the Item Debugger indicates that the Item is in a healthy state, the issue may be due to a delay in scheduled updates. In some cases, updates are set to occur less frequently for certain financial institution connections because the institution imposes limits on when Plaid can connect for updates.
If data has been missing for over a day, there is likely an issue with Plaid's connection. Use the Institution Status page on the dashboard to view the current status for Plaid's connection to the financial institution, including current connection success rates and known issues we are aware of.
To troubleshoot further, open an institution support case for missing data using your identifier, and our Support Team will investigate further.
Incorrect Data Issues
Incorrect data issues occur when the data available for a given Item or Account does not match what a user is expecting. In these cases an Item or Account is in a healthy state and has updated successfully, so there will be no Plaid error code you can use to investigate. There are several potential causes for information to be, or appear to be, incorrect. In some cases, there may be a Product limitation that is contributing, and we recommend reading more about Product limitations in the Understanding Plaid's Products section of the Help Center.
If the issue is not due to a product limitation, open an institution support case for incorrect data using your identifier, and our Support Team will investigate further.