Thanks TorS for trying to help. Tried disabling autocrossfade (and a few other things), but got nowhere. In the process, I discovered that when butting the two events, the upper right corner triangular handle on the left event also disappeared. Found that by making very minute adjustments to the position of the right edge of the left event I could find a point where the handle did not disappear and then I could sucessfully complete the fade out. No wonder I couldn't remember what I did last time, I'm not even sure I know what I did this time! Perhaps the edge of the event needs to be exactly between two frames. Can you or anybody else add to this?
Thanks again for your effort,
Grizzly Ike

Do you have snap to frame enabled?

Dave T2

I tried this- zoom way in and separate the clips a little. If they're butted, it won't work...

I see where Dave T2 is going on this -- if Quantize to Frame is on, the "snap" you get when you get the events near each other is being quantized to a frame boundary to the left of the first event's end point. So, your events really are overlapped. Either turn off QTF, or (better) trim back the first event to end on the frame boundary.
///d@

Put event one on one track, then put event two on the next track. That way you don't have to worry about "overlap" at all. You get a simple fade to black and back.

Thanks Sonic Dennis. It's nice to know what I actually did to solve the problem. Thought about using two tracks, but knew I had found a way around it before and had to see it through.

As a Premiere user ( still trying to decide to get V4) one way to control the fade is to put a short black video on a higher track over the intersection of the two clips and fade in and out over the point that you want using composite control rubber band. You can use this at any point to achieve a fade to black. This is the only way in Premiere if the video clips are on V1a or V1b!!!
RonE

I didn't think of the quantize to frames issue, mainly because I didn't bother to start Vegas to check facts before posting what seemed like an obvious reply (sorry). But also because: If QTF is enabled, why doesn't both ends snap to frame - then there should be no problem? Perhaps you fine-tuned one clip first (off-frame) and then just pulled the other clip up to it. That would explain.
Tor