@IntuitAlicia,
@LaurenIntuitTowne
@Benjamin_Dickson
@IntuitRichard

I know there were delays on Saturday; is paper file now the only way to go?

Are we positive of the status?  The status can be double checked here by entering the SID: https://accountants-community.intuit.com/articles/1622014

I am positive of the e-file reject status. Both returns were rejected as having been submitted on 11/19 even though the e-postmark from Lacerte was 11/17. I spent over an hour on the phone with Lacerte staff who blame the IRS for not picking up the returns from Lacerte servers even though it was timely transmitted to them (according to all deadline notifications that I received from Lacerte).

I was told that Lacerte does not really "send" batches of returns to the IRS even though the on screen e-file status documentation reads "Return forwarded-The Lacerte e-filing center has transmitted...". I was told that the IRS picks up the returns from Lacerte and that this late file was not Lacerte's fault. The Lacerte representative gave me the phone number of the e-file help desk as my only option for getting answers as to why these returns were not e-filed on Saturday before the shutdown.

There are refunds in both cases. I would paper file if I could, but one client is still out of the country and the other return is a joint filing with one spouse on either coast. We accomplished all documentation and signatures through secure online means.

I apologize for any confusion, but more importantly the time it sounds like you've spent working on this situation.

Because the IRS shuts down Individual MeF e-file servers on November 17 at 11:59 PM EDT, Lacerte implements an e-filing blocking error earlier in the day to avoid transmission of a return that may not complete the acknowledgment process, preventing e-file transmission.  

Based on the description of the situation you've experienced the return was transmitted prior to the error blocking, postmarked on 11/17 and held for IRS to retrieve.  Because it was not retrieved, the acknowledgment status was updated with an e-file rejection and the rejection status was postmarked as 11/19.

You can view and print out the E-file Activity Report to provide to the IRS to show the time the return was transmitted and the reason for rejection.

Unfortunately, because IRS has shut down their servers for Individual e-filing, the return will need to be paper filed.

To view and print your e-file activity report:  https://accountants-community.intuit.com/articles/1612973

I received no notice of Lacerte's blocking earlier in the day. How were we supposed to know that? If I had known through the Lacerte notifications, I could have planned this differently especially with the client out of the country.

In all my years of efiling, with Lacerte, I have NEVER heard of this "blocking" methodology.  A wee bit of up-front info on this, along with all the notices of the efile shutdown  deadline, sure would have been nice.

An in-product alert was posted on October 17 as a heads up to notify all customers that the IRS would be shutting down the 1040 MeF system for annual maintenance on Saturday, November 17, 2018 at 11:59 PM EST.

We generally post in-product alerts when version blocking is implementing, which is when you would see e-file blocking implemented in a more common scenario.  This type of blocking throws an error when attempting to transmit a return on an older version which would result in an e-file rejection.

However, situations like this one when we are approaching a server shutdown deadline for sending and receiving, we do implement an e-file block closer to the deadline in order to allow all transmitted returns to complete the acknowledgement process.

Any e-file blocking implemented did not affect this filing.  If it had you would have received a transmission failure message that would have prevented you from transmitting the return to Lacerte. In this case, the return did make it through, but was not picked up by the IRS which then resulted in a rejection status.

Lesson for the day - don't take any chances and try e-filing on the day the IRS says it is going to pull the plug.