BUG TEST: Duplicate Stacks in Custom-Sorted Albums?

Question

Before I submit this as an official bug report (through both the ADC site and the regular Feedback page), I’d be grateful to anyone who could take the time to try and replicate this strange behavior.
(I’ve been able to reproduce it on machines in two different Apple Stores, but I’d like to see if it’s as easy to reproduce on other people’s home systems as well.)
Here are the steps which seem to consistently work (i.e. which cause the problem) on my Mac Pro (running the latest version of Aperture under OS X 10.5.6):
1) Create a new Album (from any arbitrary selection of a few pics from any Project); the Album can be at any level in the Inspector’s Projects pane, either within a particular Project or off in a separate Folder;
2) Give that Album a name (don’t just leave as the default “Untitled”);
3) View the Album’s contents in “Browser Only” mode, so you can see all its thumbs (this step isn’t necessary; it just makes what’s about to happen easier to see);
4) The Album’s sorting order (the pull down list in the upper left) should be at the default setting of “Image Date”; change this option to “Custom” by dragging a few of the thumbs around to different positions. This step is critical.
5) Now that your Album’s initial contents have been moved around to create a Custom sort order, make some selections of images from other Projects and add them to the new Album by dragging the selection onto the new Album’s name in the Inspector’s Projects pane...
BUT FIRST... make sure these new selections include Stacks, and aren’t just single images only.
If you’ve done all of the above steps -- and it may take a couple of tries -- re-select the new Album in the Inspector and see if there are MULTIPLE COPIES of the Stacks which just got dragged into it. There may be two copies of each Stack, or sometimes even more. And if there are copies, you won’t be able to simply delete the extra ones from the Album. The only two options you have (short of an Undo) are:
a) Change the Album’s sort order to something other than “Custom” (which only helps until you switch it back to Custom again); or
b) Un-Stack then re-select and Re-Stack each unique Stack which now appears two or more times;
...neither of which is a particularly acceptable workaround.
If even just a couple of users can replicate this bug, I’ll at least know it isn’t just a bizarre coincidence between me and two separate Apple Stores when I write it up and submit it. Or if this is an already acknowledged and well-reported bug, please let me know that as well!
Many thanks,
John Bertram
Toronto

Answer 1

I'm afraid I have an additional twist. In addition to multiple stack (sometimes 5-6 extras) I have "blanks": dotted rectangles. These have no thumbs, and the thumbs won't re-build. Oddly, if I click on the blank, dotted rectangle, a preview does appear after several seconds of a blank gray screen. The files are managed, and if I search "show in finder," they files are found. But there seems to be no way to make the thumbs appear.
I have tried changing the sort order from "custom," but it doesn't affect the blanks.
I've copied these stacks to a new project, and (I think) isolated the problem, but there are 800 of them and I don't relish re-importing them all.
I have wasted days on this problem over the past months, and am very unhappy with this "professional" application.