Disappearing control buttons

UweZ wrote on 2/7/2011, 12:23 PM

Last week I installed and began using my Vegas Movie Studio HD V.10.0 Platinum Production Suite. When I opened the program again yesterday, the timeline window no longer included the arrow buttons on the lower right side that allowed me to expand or contract the length of the clips or the vertical width of the media bars. Closing and opening the program does not help. The arrows have simply disappeared. Could you please help?

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 2/7/2011, 2:41 PM

Is the program window Maximized?

Have you tried going to the program's View menu, selecting Windows Layouts and then Default Layout to reset the interface?

UweZ wrote on 2/7/2011, 4:57 PM

Thank you Steve Grisetti for your suggestions

Yes, my program window was maximized. Also I had switched back to the Default Layout but it did not help – even after restarting the computer.

Just a moment ago when I was able to return to my home computer and open the Vegas editing program everything was fine: the right-direction arrow and the + and – buttons were once again where they should be (at the right end of the slide bar).

I will continue with my editing project but I suspect I’m going to run into this problem again.

UweZ wrote on 2/8/2011, 6:06 PM

I just realized that my “Disappearing control buttons” are the result of the area under the timeline turning black. That area contains the slide bar for the clips on the timeline and the “+” and “-“ buttons that allow you to stretch or shrink the length of the clips. These control buttons are still there and they still work when you click on them, only you can’t see them since their lettering is also black (The slide bar on the right side of the timeline is also affected). It is an intermittent problem. It can happen one day and the next day it would be fine.

Interestingly, that problem also occurs with the menu bar on my Internet Explorer-8. Others are experiencing the IE “blackout” too, judging from the multitude of entries found when I Googled “menu bar turns black”. Since my Sony editor is working ok for the moment, I will leave well-enough alone for right now and go on with my editing work. But I expect that by tomorrow I will need to again seek a remedy for the black bar.

Chienworks wrote on 2/9/2011, 4:35 AM

There is a preference setting that fixes this that i've had to change in almost ever Vegas install i've ever done. It used to be under General / Enable Windows theme support. Unchecking it would fix a myriad of display glitches, including the black control bars.

Later versions of Vegas have moved this into the Internal preferences. DISCLAIMER: mucking about in internal preferences can mess up your Vegas installation! Don't do this if you're faint of heart or squeamish! Don't expect much help if you screw something up. You may have to reset Vegas to the default 'factory installed' state if you do something wrong. Hold down the Shift & Ctrl keys while launching Vegas to restore all preferences an settings to their original installation state if you need to recover.

To access the internal preferences, hold down the Shift key while clicking Options / Preferences. A new tab will appear labeled "Internal". In the search box labeled "Show only prefs containing:" enter the word theme. This should cause the preference "Enable Windows theme support" to appear. If the value is currently TRUE then replace that with FALSE and click Apply. The next time you start Vegas theme support will be disabled and lots of nifty things will just work right.

I've seen occasional issues with Internet Explorer on some other folks' computers. I always run my computer with the "classic windows" theme and this seems to avoid the problem. It's also a much slicker and more compact interface than XP's default or the bloated Vista & 7 themes, leaving me more desktop space for getting actual work done.

UweZ wrote on 2/9/2011, 7:17 PM

Thank you Chienworks. Your suggested remedy seems to have done the trick. Since I have a “later” version of Vega (Vega 10), I used the “Press Shift key while clicking on the Options/Preferences” choice. I can’t imagine how you ever uncover this mystery. I will still hold my breath for the next few days, but I suspect that my problem is fixed. Thank you again very much.