Red X on slide thumbnails in Master View

I'm not sure if this is a fix or a fluke, but this is what I found that worked:

1. Right-click a thumbnail that has a red X
2. Hover on Layout
3. You may see that some of your layouts have red X's, if so... (and try the next 2 steps even if they don't)
4. Note the type of layout of the current slide (title and content, title only, etc.)
5. Scroll through the list of available layouts and select a similar layout without an X

In my case, this fixed all the thumbnails that used the same layout.  I then repeated the steps for the other slide layouts until all the red X's were gone.  I saved my file and reopened it.  The fix stuck. 

From what I've read of the symptoms, it appears that the file loses the layout info and needs to have the layout reapplied from a similar/identical layout.

If this works for you, please click "Helpful" below so that we know whether it's a fix or a fluke.

I found an immediate cure was to simply drag the width of the thumbnail column slightly wider. This caused all thumbnails which were red crosses to resolve to proper thumbnails. You can then drag the column width back again if necessary.

Deepa,

The first link you provided isn't relevant.  It discusses a different problem (images on slides appearing as red-x, rather than the slides in thumbnail view appearing as red-xs, which is what LyteSleeper has asked about).

The second link might have some useful suggestions, though most of the respondents seem to have concluded that the "fix", such as it is, is to revert to PPT 2010.

Since this problem has appeared several times now, I hope you have a way of escalating it to someone at MS who can investigate (and, we hope) fix it.

Thanks!

I got the Red X to go away by hiding and unhiding the slides with the Xs showing.

Good luck

Thanks John, but I must then have a third problem as my thumbnails have red crosses and the slides are NOT OK.

I'll try to include an image below, which shows my problem:

In this screenshot you can see a red cross on one of the thumbnails and graphical elements are missing or misplaced on the slide (the slide has a stacked bar chart, which is completely missing on the slide and partly missing in the thumbnail) - and the text boxes are misplaced in the slide.

In addition, PPT2013 crashed a second after this screendump was taken when I clicked the File-menu... :-(