"Regarding" in the Notes displaying in stikeout font, in the Contacts layout

[jwilli11]

I have no clue what may have been accidently selected, or if there was a fluke this afternoon while working with my contacts. I had been entering notes for a contact from the Layout view. The pop-out window closed, and all text under the Regarding field of the Notes began displaying as strikeout text  If I open the Notes entry, the font shows correctly. Even though I was working with a single contact, and a singles Notes, all "Regarding" entries for all contacts now display as strikeout font in the Contact layout. Anyone with an idea how this may have happened, and how to correct it? (I have since shutdown, restarted the computer and the problem persist.  I am using ACT! Pro v17.

[Gary W]

Hi jwilli11,

This is indeed rather strange. Could you please take a screenshot of where you can see the Regarding area with the strikethrough text, and one of the open note detail.

Is this issue affecting any other databases on your machine, i.e. the demo DB?

Are there any other users of this database? Are they also experiencing the issue?

[jwilli11]

The issue does not impact the Demo DB, and there are no other users of the DB. I am attaching a Word doc with an image that shows both how the notes look in the layout screen and in the notes detail. I have checked several other records in the DB, and all appear similarly.

ACT w-Notes Strikeout font.docx ‏160 KB

[Gary W]

Just to confirm, are new notes created now also experiencing this issue when viewed from the notes tab?

Does anything happen when you change the following preference?

Tools > Preferences > Calendar & Activities > Activity Preferences > When Clearing Activities > Grey 

The following Knowledgebase article lists several ways to repair databases which may be showing signs of corruption (which I believe is what is causing this). http://kb.act.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/19642

Please could you work though the 3 methods, testing along the way to see if they have resolved the issue?

[jwilli11]

The Check & Repair method made no difference. When running the Reindex method from "actdiag", I selected the DB and Reindex. The working icon appeared for about 30 seconds, and I received the following message: "Unhandled exception has occurred in the your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately. Cannot open database "Contacts2014" requested by login. The login failed. Login failed for user 'sa'." There is no password on the database. However, there maybe an issue with accessing it because this is not the user name associated with the DB.

[jwilli11]

In response to your other "Confirms" - New notes have the same result, they appear as strikeout font in the layout view. And, the "clearing activities" selection is/has always been for "grey". BTW, I'm working through the procurement process for an upgrade to v18.

[Gary W]

Could you try rebuilding the Act preferences file as detailed in this Knowledgebase article: http://kb.act.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14770
Please skip the Act Diagnostics method, and follow the steps for Manually Rebuilding the Preferences.

[jwilli11]

Thanks for the assistance. I'll have to try this later, as my day is stacking-up on me. The "strikeout" issue doesn't seem to be impacting anything but the appearance...for now. But, I will try the Rebuild Preferences. I maintain daily back-ups of the database. So, I would like to not be distracted when working through the steps. This is a database I've been using for 20+ years. Again, thanks. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[jwilli11]

Gary W... Providing an update to the issue we discussed last week.  FYI, I did not rebuild the Preferences, nor make any changes to the Preferences or other settings.  However, in working with my database on Thursday (9/22), at some point in the day I noted that the field no longer shows with strikeout font in the Contacts layout screen. In other words, the issue corrected itself...because I did nothing I am aware of to correct the issue!  Again, thanks for your insight and assistance.

[Gary W]

Thanks for the update. This would suggest that perhaps the issue was Windows related, and resolved itself though a Windows update.