Task Names Dissapear ?

[Burnley81]

Cannot find any related issue to this - so I have one PM who has a project
plan with lots of small tasks in.
For some reason every now and again the task name dissapears completely -
its never just a single task name its always mutliple task names that
dissapear.
It is always indented tasks names that dissapear also and never the parent
task name.

Any ideas?

Thanks Andy

 

[Rob Schneider]

Ideas--some of which may be exlaining what you already know.

: have you seen then disappear? What happens just that moment when they
are there, and then they disappear?
: Do they come back? e.g. deleted or hidden? If they do come back,
under what cirumstances?
: Is there a filter deployed?
: Select all the tasks (click on square in upper left above the ID
number), and press the "+" button on teh tool bar many times to open up
all hidden tasks. They come back?

 

[Burnley81]

Tried this out to no avail.
Don't actaully notice them dissapear - just happen to notice it missing info.
They are not hidden - you can actually see the sub-task its just that the
description on the task in the name field is blank - all other information is
kept and retained.

There is no filter applied - its All tasks
In has just removed the "Name" words from 10 subtasks (if that's the right
word) in the middle of the plan. Everything else is present and correct.
This is not the first time it has occurred and it only happens to one of my
PM team.

Any more ideas?

 

[Fabrizio]

If you click inside the Task Name field of those tasks, can you see their
name appear inside the white input bar just above the Task Name field?

Fabrizio.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Oh. Understand now it's just contents of the Name field, not the whole
task (record). Never heard of such a problem and it's hard to fathom
how it could affect only a few task names if caused by some bug in Project.

However .. maybe simply un-install and re-install Project on that one
computer?

Check for computer virus or other malware?

If someone else opens same file do they see something different?

Can't think of anything else.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Could it be the font foreground and background are the same colour?

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Andy,

Make sure that the latest Service Pack has been installed. Project 2007 is
at SP2.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials

 

[JulieS]

Hello Burnley81,

I have seen this in the past on an installation of Project 2003
which was not service packed to then SP-2. As Mike suggests,
install the latest service packs to the users installation of
project.

You can also "overwrite" a task name by hitting the space bar -- is
it possible the user is inadvertently replace the task name with a
space?

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

 

[Burnley81]

Just to let you know - since installing SP2 - my project managers have not
reported a problem!

 

[JulieS]

Thanks for letting us know Burnley81.
Julie

Just to let you know - since installing SP2 - my project managers
have not
reported a problem!

 

[djjw21]

Hello,
I have had a similar problem on several occassions. Sometimes it is only
the task name that disappears, sometimes it is the whole row that shows up
blank and sometimes it is somewhere in between those two extremes.

I'm in the middle of an issue where entire rows of data are missing in
scattered locations throughout the workplan.

I'm running Project 2003 and have Service Pack 3.

Please help! How do I get my data back?

Thanks

 

[Rob Schneider]

Very weird. Are other people using the file too? Just you? If you
export the file into Excel does the missing information stay missing?
Saving and reopening the file presents different missing information?
Does the missing information ever come back?

About the only reason I can think of, beyond file corruption, is that
the font has been inadvertently changed (white on white)? I know that
seems stupid, but as i saw it happen once with a colleague it always
immediately comes to mind.

Perhaps recreate the file as thought it is corrupted:
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm#Handling_project_file_corruption_and/or_bloat.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com