Accidental automation in Groups

Hello. Here’s an issue that’s been around at least since C8 but has yet to be addressed:

If you click on the arrange window on the bottom area of a group track an automation point is added at -oodB and the track switches to Read-enable (green R button turns on). See video: Accidental automation added in Group track - YouTube

Undo will only remove the automation point but will NOT restore the volume level of the track so, unless you had it on unity, you will likely have to re-balance by ear… (perhaps undo in the mixer is possible in C9 but this is beyond the point, the fact is the whole thing breaks your workflow…).

It seems to me that the issue occurs only when the “Virgin Territories” feature is enabled. It also happens with other tracks whose arrange window area is primarily used for volume automation (for example, audio outputs of VST racks). I’ve tried turning off “Locate when click on empty space” and it does not change this behaviour.

It would be lovely if this was fixed as it is extremely annoying, especially if you have changed the default volume level of a group/output…

P.S. As far as I could find, this has been submitted previously twice (once by myself) in these two threads, but no solution has been suggested:

  1. Steinberg Forums
  2. Steinberg Forums

Hi! Totally agree about this issue. I do like (and use all the time) the ‘locate when click on empty space’, and I seldom use the automation in the project window, unless I really make that track very wide in order to work on it. Seems silly for the program to assume you want to create new automation on very narrow track.

I’m brand new in this forum - and I’m just wondering if you’ve gotten any headway on this, any workarounds or other info?