Hi again, OldToad. You certainly have gone above and beyond. I appreciate your effort.

This morning I checked one of the other threads about this issue, and one of the users there wrote:

"The super-peculiar thing is that invoice attachments created on or before 11/09/2022 open as images - exactly what I want to see. Invoice attachments created on or after 11/11/2022 try to download as files."

That is the same as my experience, except I saw it three days earlier (11/6 and 11/8). This reinforces my suspicion that it was caused by a November software update, as I assume that all of the QBO servers are not updated at exactly the same time.

If this change is intentional, I can't imagine how anybody benefits from it. Will it save Intuit money? They still have to provide storage for our attached files. There is no advantage for users who do want to download their attachments, as they could easily do that before from the new browser tab. So why make life difficult for those of us who want to view our attachments conveniently (I can't imagine why anybody wouldn't, but whatever)? It makes no sense at all.

I wonder whether they simply close cases after a certain amount of time passes. I suppose I will contact them again if this doesn't clear up with the next update. They tout "new features and innovation" on another site that's tailored to accountants, so I should be able to tell when the next one is rolled out.