Red X on slide thumbnails in Master View

It's March 2016 and I do not find a MS fix for this bug. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I've been using PPT 2013 daily for several months in a large corporate environment without incident until last week.  Manager was working on an 80+ slide deck. Everything was good until he attempted to copy a  SmartArt graphic from another deck and paste it into his deck. With that action (which we have duplicated and confirmed), his file suddenly went "Read Only" and red Xs (large and small) showed up in thumbnails, bullets (which are images) and embedded images and backgrounds.  I have screen shots below if anyone is interested. I blurred out confidential information.  The SmartArt that caused all the problems is the hourglass pyramids (slide 4).

Today, a deck someone in the office sent me was looking great, including the thumbnail views on the left. Then, while showing the deck's owner how to use Adjust > Color and Adjust > Corrections options, odd things began to happen. Background image disappeared entirely while trying to adjust the color saturation using one of the presets. And then a large red X appeared in one slide in the thumbnails view. 

While I have not figured out a fix, I have made an observation that may, or may not help the MS team.  The SmartArt that was copied and pasted into my manager's deck originated in a deck that was originally built on a Mac.

I believe the deck that gave me a red X today was at one point opened on a Mac before I got it. 

Jodi-

I know this is an old thread, but I have a user who is experiencing this issue.  64bit OS with 32bit Office 2013 installed.  Once the red X appears, cannot save presentation.  Closing PP and reopening allows them to continue to work, but if changes were made since last save and red X appears, all changes are lost.  All office and OS updates have been applied, so that's not an issue.  even happens on small (7mb) presentations.  Any help from MS would be appreciated.

I am having the same issue on Office 2013, but the cross is blue in colour. Say, I have compiled 3 images (1,2,3) in one slide for presentation, I could see all the images in the slide but the thumbnail on side shows big blue cross. When I placing any 2 images together in one slide, thumbnail shows cross; but each image in individual slide works perfect. First the slides were prepared in office 2010 (work place) and were working great, but when I trying to open the presentation in office 2013 (laptop), it is showing this issue. please help.

I have been trying to use PPT 2013 for about a year - cannot trust that it won't destroy a presentation with red Xs while preparing or presenting.  I actually carry another laptop with PPT 2010 loaded on it for group sessions - am amazed that this error persists after so many months.

It is now January of 2015 and this problem is still persisting.  I am teaching a class in PP 2013 and thankfully still have 2010 on my home computer, as an average of 50 to 60% of the files I receive cannot be viewed in PP2013 due to big red X's on the screen.  If I open the file in 2010 - no problem.  Has a fix to this STILL not been found by Microsoft?

Hi,

Know this discussion thread is a year old - but I'm still stuck with the same problem... is there any fix to this?

As a training provider, more of our corporate clients are upgrading to 2013 version, and using powerpoint we are getting a lot of negative feedback on these issues. Here too in our training room, our machines frequently have this issue (we have just got new laptops and still the problem persists)

Of course, I like others have issues with the new interface: e.g. bringing up the 'FORMAT SHAPE' box now means i have to SCROLL up and down whereas in previous versions its just all in one neat box. The labels for some of the categories are gone making it difficult for many of our average employee participants to navigate the version. 2010 was alot better with navigation and stability.

Any quick fixes to the red X problem - as participants can't save their work once they see this message.

Regards and thanks for any help.

Mark