Noticed that Explorer no longer contained a Category column. Had a few crashes earlier so maybe that caused it. Or possibly since exporting of the special 'shortkey' MEX file I sent to ISS, followed by re-opening my FULL.MEX file. Whatever the cause, it's a PITA!

I used the macdef.exe solution Stan recommended the last time, but of course I've had to reset all my preferences. And once again all 'Last Run Times' are now showing 'Never'.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I've seen it a few times and have written it up and sent the report to ISS. The more I see it the more I believe that somehow the column width is being set to zero.

ISS: Can you tell us where in the registry this is saved? Next time it happens we could tell you what the cause is.

My worry is for new users who don't realize they should have the column. I suggest to ISS that in the future they add some code to remedy any users out there who have the problem but do not realize it.

AND AGAIN!

This is beginning to annoy me big time now.

I think it follows certain types of crash, but can't be sure

I see no comments to this thread from ISS since it was started 8 days ago? What I'm particularly keen to know is whether there is any other way to get that important Category column back, apart from using macdef.exe as Stan suggested, which means tediously re-setting all my preferences etc.

Of course, it would also be good to hear that this long-standing bug has been isolated and fixed!

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I posted 'the fix' some time ago on my "Issues" section of my web page. Click here to see it. I created a bugrep incident 6142 way back in the beta days, 3.9.9.97 I think, but ISS deemed it was not a bug and marked it as "Resolved". I couldn't disagree more. The missing column reported might not be a bug but MEP allowing this condition to occur is! We just need to keep complaining about it and maybe it will be re-opened and addressed.

Here's the easy 'fix' when one goes missing:
Export your preferences, restore program defaults, then import you preferences. Only takes a few seconds and you don't loose your settings.

A new issue, to replace the previously closed one, was created. The tracking number is [ISS6736]. Cory, you are listed on this issue as someone who reported the issue so you should have received an automated response from the tracking system.

We will work on a fix for this issue.

As another work-around you might try deleting this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express 4\$Temp

I have not had a chance to test this.

Excellent, thanks Cory! Pending a proper fix, that's a great work-around. And more education for me, as I'd forgotten all about that 'configuration-saving' option. I did have a single ME Pro cfg file saved in early Feb, although I needed a fair number of changes to get things back to how I reckon they were last night! Needless to say, I've now re-saved that.

One remaining snag is that you lose the 'Last Run Time' data, which all come up as 'Never'. Not life threatening, but I did use that occasionally to weed out ancient unused stuff. I'm not sure why that can't be preserved?

Before seeing your post I'd been ploughing through the Registry. I thought I'd found a promising candidate deeply located here:
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1214440339-583907252-839522115-1008\Software\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express 4\$Temp\Grids\Explorer\MainWin.cxMacroView\cxCatCol

I exported it for safety and then changed the entry against 'Visible' from False to True, closed everything and re-booted with optimism - but still no Category!

I've now seen Kevin's suggestion to delete that key, so next time this happens I'll try that, knowing I can fall back on a quick restoration - apart from Last Run Time!

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Thanks Kevin. As you see from my reply to Cory, I'd homed in on that registry key too!

I'm sending you my FULL.mex file as it stands as a basis for trying to reproduce and isolate the issue.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Just had it happen again on the TS. Type was up top and I dragged it down onto the Variable Name header and it simply disappeared. I messed around with the \$Temp\Grids\EditorVars\frmeVars.cxView\ values to no avail. Did notice that cxType\Visible = False. Setting to "True" did not fix the problem. I deleted the entire $Temp key and that caused the "Type" to go back up to again. But this time when I dragged and dropped it on the header it worked and was visible. I looked again at the Grids\EditorVars\frmeVars.cxView\cxType and all of the index numbers and such looked the same as they were before.After some experimentation I think my troubleshooting was flawed. MEP does not write the values to the reg until the editor is closed. Duh. So that means when I was first looking at the reg it was not reflecting values that might have been during the invisible state. Next time I'll try to do that first. Oh, version 4.0.3.1.

Just lost the category column again. I used Cory's fix to get it back, but of course paid the price of losing all the Last Run data. PITA.

ISS: Any news on the fix you were working on 7 months ago [ISS6736]?

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK