Ghost tasks with no project or logic

[alan_noyes]

I have taken over a master file comprised of eight subfiles that I have
been having multiple issues with. We are using Project professional
2003 with service pack 3. I believe that these issues are caused by
linking errors. One of the issues that I am noticing is that I have a
few ghost tasks that have no project associated with them. Some of
these ghost tasks have logic and some do not have any logic. Do any of
you know how this type of things happens? I do not understand how you
can have a ghost task in the master file that is not associated with a
project and does not have any logic. Thanks for any help that you can
provide.

 

[Jim Aksel]

It may not be a ghost. Look in two places...

Tools/Options/View (tab) check boxes are available for external
predecessors and successors. Toggle those to off to see if the tasks
disappear.

Insert the column "External" which is a true/false field that tells you if
the task is external to the project. If that says "No" you need to look
elsewhere for the root cause.

I am not aware of a way to have an external task with no logic... well,
actually I can think of one way but I haven't tried it so let's let that
sleeping dog lay.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[John]

I have taken over a master file comprised of eight subfiles that I have
been having multiple issues with. We are using Project professional
2003 with service pack 3. I believe that these issues are caused by
linking errors. One of the issues that I am noticing is that I have a
few ghost tasks that have no project associated with them. Some of
these ghost tasks have logic and some do not have any logic. Do any of
you know how this type of things happens? I do not understand how you
can have a ghost task in the master file that is not associated with a
project and does not have any logic. Thanks for any help that you can
provide.

Alan,
Go ahead and try Jim's suggestions but from your description it sounds
like you have file corruption - a common problem if linked files (master
& subprojects) were not meticulously maintained. I suggest you do the
following:
1. Open the master and each of the 8 subprojects (all nine files open)
2. In the master select the insertion point summary line for a
subproject.
3. Go to Project/ Task Information/Advanced tab
3. Uncheck the box for "link to project"
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 to unlink each subproject
4. Activate each subproject and use Save As to the same name and
directory location.
5. Close each subproject after saving.
6. Delete the master
7. Go to our MVP website at, http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm, and
take a look at FAQ 43 - handling project file corruption and/or bloat.
Use one or more of the methods there to rebuild each of the 8 subprojects
8. Finally, rebuild the master

Now, do not rename, move or fail to save both master and subproject
whenever edits are made at the master level.

Hope this helps.

John
Project MVP

 

[alan_noyes]

Thanks for the advice guys. I definately had a corrupt file.
Unfortunately, the methods I tried for resolving the corruption did not
work. I to put each project into excel files and then imported them
back into new project files. This seems to have fixed the issues that I
was experiencing. Thanks again.

 

[John]

Thanks for the advice guys. I definately had a corrupt file.
Unfortunately, the methods I tried for resolving the corruption did not
work. I to put each project into excel files and then imported them
back into new project files. This seems to have fixed the issues that I
was experiencing. Thanks again.

Alan,
You must have had some really bad corruption if the FAQ methods I
suggested did not work. Nonetheless, you're welcome and I'm glad you got
it resolved.

John
Project MVP