Project 2010 - Disappearing Task Names

Question

I have a Project Professional 2010 (using Server 2010) file that has task names that disappear.  These are tasks with Resources, durations, sometimes completed, sometimes just have some work against them, sometimes no actual work yet.  When you open the schedule and double click on the task all the Task Information, except the name, appear as expected.  The task level (WBS level) is also maintained and the "+" or "-" sign will display even though the task name is blank.   It appears to happen randomly but MIGHT happen more often after an update is accepted.

Answer 1

cq --

Have you applied the lastest Cumulative Updates to your Project Server 2010 system?  The most recent CU is the April 2011 update.  Let us know and we will try to help.

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Dale A. Howard [MVP]
VP of Educational Services
msProjectExperts
http://www.msprojectexperts.com
http://www.projectserverexperts.com
"We write the books on Project Server"

Answer 2

Hi Dale,

 

Yes, the latest CU has been applied.  It seems that the schedule will work for a while and then they suddenly disappear.

Answer 3

I suggest that you open a support case with Microsoft for this strange problem.

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Gary Chefetz, MCITP, MCP, MVP msProjectExperts
Project and Project ServerFAQs
Project Server Help BLOG

Answer 4

I too have the same problem with MS Project Professional 2010.  Have you identified a solution??

Answer 5

No, no solution yet.

Answer 6

I have also seen this issue also,  for me it usually happens on tasks with external predecessors or successors and I am playing around with them.

Answer 7

I have the same problem with a standalone PC: subtasks entered disappear, and need to be re-entered.  As said, the plus and minus indicators are meaningless.  And asking subtasks to be seen doesn't do anything.  I think it's broken.....

Answer 8

I have the same issue... Working with Project 2010 and click on undo a few times.  All the task names disappeared... They vanished from the Task Usage,  Gantt Chart, Resource Usage views.  This is the second time in one day... I've closed the file and reopened it, changed fonts, color etc......  Once I reopened the file I was able to get back to my view... Definitely NOT a good feature... What gives?  BTW - Standalone No MS Project Server 64Bit Win 7

Answer 9

Hi folks,

Any resolution from the MS folks? I also have a ticket open and will report in when I hear back.

Trevor

Answer 10

1. In additon to the CUs, have the related updates been applied to the Desktops carrying MS Project pro?
2. Also, I have seen this issue, when the PC running is low on virtual memory. Try increasing that and/or the RAM.

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Prasanna Adavi, PMP, MCTS http://thinkepm.blogspot.com

Answer 11

I have seen this also in MS Project Professional 2010 - and not using Server 2010. It occurs when I have saved as 2003-2007, made changes, and re-saved. (And, I have set the File-->Options-->Saving option to always save as the old version, and when I get asked at 'Auto Saves' if I want to save, I select "no" as dialog directs so that it saves in old version format.)

The tasks "disappear" leaving a blank row where they used to be - however, I always find them showing after the last task in the project plan. Try scrolling down - you'll probably see them there at the end of your plan also. They won't have changed (if you had predecessors set even the start and stop dates are still as entered). I just move them back up to the blank row.

I have not seen this problem when I leave in MS Proj 2010 format - only when I am saving to old versions of MS Project for my external partners. Hope this helps.

Answer 12

Quick update on this one - we have found a repro and it appears related to multi level undo.  We are working on a fix and (no promises) we would hope to get this in the next client side Cumulative Update in August.  For now if you are hitting this a lot then turning off multi level undo is certainly one option.

Best regards - and apologies for the inconvenience this has caused our customers who have hit this issue.

Brian. 

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Answer 13

Brian,

Where is the option to turn off "multi-level undo"?

Naomi

 

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Naomi Flanagan

Answer 14

Never mind.  I was looking for an "On/Off".  I found the option for actually setting the number of undo's allowed, which is what I assume is to be used.

 

Naomi

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Naomi Flanagan

Answer 15

Hi

We are experiencing similar problems.  Tasks names are missing seemingly randomly from the plan.  There are only 257 tasks.  Some tasks were created using copy / paste but there's no direct link.  The plan was saved but not published.  Has there been any solution / work around offered on this issue?

Thanks

Andy

Answer 16

Hi Brian

Is there any news on this issue?  We have experienced it with some of our plans recently.  As usual a plan required urgently has gone the same way causing much consternation.

Are there any work arounds if not?

thanks

Andy

Answer 17

Hi Andy, the fix will be in the August CU which should be out very shortly.  Until then the workaround to stop it happening is to turn off multi level undo - and if it happens then close the plan without saving.  If you have saved then recovery from an archive copy would be the solution - or at least turn on archiving if you aren't using it so that you can recover it next time.  Sorry for the inconvenience this bug has caused everyone - and thanks for the patience and assistance from the customers working with us on tracking down the bug - and Adrian's great work finally isolating it.

Best regards,

Brian.

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Answer 18

Hello everyone - Quick update - We applied the August CU and still we experienced this issue on one of the projects yesterday. The project was already in the system. Maybe this only works for new projects created after applying the CU. In either case, just wanted to give an update. I had saved a local copy and was able to copy the task names back.

Answer 19

Hi Raja, it will certainly not fix projects that were already broken - so if it was last saved with blank tasks this would be expected. If however the task names were there when you opened and then went away this may indicate you are seeing a different issue than the one we fixed.

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Answer 20

Hi Brian - This project was not broken, all the tasks were intact. The tasks disappeared when we were just doing regular updates (after the SP1 and August CU was applied). Maybe its a different issue than the one that was fixed, but the end result is same - tasks were disappeared.

Will copying and pasting from a different local plan cause this issue? (the different local plan does not contain any blank lines)

Answer 21

Hi Raja - and you have applied the cleint patch - not just the server?  This specific issue related to undo - so if you hadn't used undo in the session where these tasks names went missing it might be a different problem.  Copying and pasting isn't directly implicated - but I'll discuss with my colleagues.  Is it possible to reproduce the issue?

Best regards,

Brian.

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Answer 22

And can you confirm Raja if you just see task names disappearing (which was the bug we fixed) or complete tasks?

Thanks,

Brian.

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Answer 23

Hi Brian - Inface we only applied Server patches. SPI1 and August CU. We are planning to apply client patches in Oct 2011.

I would love to reproduce this issue but I am not able to. Also, we didn't use undo on that plan. Currently, I am experiencing a similar issue with another WBS. I typed in a summary level task, saved, and published. The next time I open it, its gone. Again, its not consistent - it stays some time, it disappears the other time. Confusing!

 

Answer 24

Just task names. All the other attributes of the task names are intact (thank God for that!)

Answer 25

Thanks Raja - the fix was for the client so installing the client patch should stop this happening - but my not be the exact same issue if you havn't used undo.  Let me know if you still see it with the client CU.

Best regards,

Brian.

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Answer 26

Ok, we are planning to do that in October. I will keep you guys posted.

Answer 27

Hi Brian,

My company is experience  the same issue. We found the server patch to appy, but have been having trouble locating the client patch. Can you please let me know where we can get the client patch?

 

Thanks,

Kevin

Answer 28

Hi Kevin, the link is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2584056.

There will be an x86 and x64 version available - so you need to check which you have (File, Help will display this).  If the correct one isn't offered by default after clicking View and request hotfix downloads (the page guesses which you have based on your OS) then click Show hotfixes for all platforms and languages (2).

Best regards,

Brian. 

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Answer 29

Thanks Brian!

Answer 30

Hi,

Please note that I faced this same problem even though the December CU is applied on the server and client machines.

however i noticed that the task names that disappeared are tasks that were deleted by a team member and rejected by the project manager.

I had to fix the plan manually

Regards,

Mira

Answer 31

We are at Dec 2011 CU, yet finding issues were TaskName are disappearing. Unfortunately, we could not nail down the steps that caused the error. Suspecting timesheet updates are causing it since one of the project with blank task name has not been updated for quite sometime. Last update on that plan was addition of two task, with over 50 resources being assigned to these task (team meeting). Will try the scenario mentioned by Mira and update this forum.

Answer 32

Hi Brian,

Do you have any update on this issue? I look forward to your thoughts. 

Answer 33

My company is experiencing the same problem with tasks disappearing.  Going back to an earlier version is not an option for us.

Answer 34

Has there been any update on this issue?

We have experienced the same problem and are running cumulative update from April 2013 for Project Server 2010:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2775426

Answer 35

Are all your client PC's patched to the same level Boris? Generally this has been an issue created on Project Professional rather than relating to the server.  I am not aware of any current continuing issues like this with fully patched systems.  If you have a repro we would love to take a look and get it fixed.

Best regards,

Brian

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Answer 36

Thanks for responding Brian. We will double check.

In the meantime I have established that the task names are not actually lost. I was able to access them via Project Web App. It is only the Project Professional 2010 not displaying task names correctly.

Reproducing this problem is very hard. It happens randomly, about once a month. We have 5 project managers using Project Professional 2010 against Project Server 2010.

Answer 37

The risk here Boris, based on the earlier bugs, is that you can end up saving the blank task name to the server (if for example it was off the current page and you didn't notice), and then after publishing the task names would also be gone from PWA.  One good control on the versions is to limit the version of Project Professional that can connect to Project Server - this is set via Server Settings, Additional Server Settings.  The values are entered like 14.0.6137.5000 - which would block any Project Professional clients that were not patched to that level (April 2013 CU) forcing them to get upgraded and ensuring they cannot re-introduce old bugs into the system.  If someone below that patch level tries to connect they would get an error:

Job Type: Load

Error ID: 12015(0x2EEF)

Error Descriptions: An internal error occurred

and the extra text would show: <detail><errinfo><general><class name="ActiveCacheUnsupportedProjectProfessionalVersion"><error id="12015" name="ActiveCacheUnsupportedProjectProfessionalVersion" uid="f0e2dd73-e50f-4a04-b637-8af93c7ee224" version="14.0.6023.1000"/></class></general></errinfo></detail>

where the 14.0... number would be the version of theclient trying to connect.

Best regards,

Brian.

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Answer 38

Hi Brian, my Project Professional client shows 14.0.6129.5000 (64-bit) in File --> Help.

I installed project2010-kb2760778-fullfile-x64-glb.exe from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2760778 but the version remained the same. I was expecting this to update to 14.0.6134.5000.

Can you point me in the right direction where to find Project Professional client cumulative update 14.0.6134.5000?

Thanks
Boris

Answer 39

Hi Boris,  firstly I gave you the wrong version - April should be 14.0.6137.5000 and can be found at  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2794664.  The version number page is a little confusing in the Office products - and you need to click through to the Additional Version and Copyright Information to see the real Project version.  The one shown on the Help tab is just for the shared Office components.

Hope this helps,

Brian

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Answer 40

Thanks Brian, your link worked and the 'additional version' now shows the expected version on our test machine. We will get this patch installed on all our Project clients and configure Project Server to prevent connections from older versions. Hopefully this will stop further occurrences of the problem.

Answer 41

Hi Brian

Since the upgrade to 14.0.6137.5000, Microsoft Project crashes whenever we try expanding any of the column heading filters. This applies to the plans that used to open and work in the previous version correctly.

Please refer to the screenshot below.

The problem is always reproducible and I can provide an MSP to reproduce the problem.
We tried a number of workstations and both 64bit and 32bit versions of Project 2010 Professional.

Can you help?

Thanks
Boris